TECHNOLOGY TOOLS IN CLASSROOM TEACHING

Integration on Technology Tools in Classroom Teaching and Learning

Integration on Technology Tools in Classroom Teaching and Learning

Wikis are fully editable websites; any user can read or add content to a wiki site. This functionality means that wikis are an excellent tool for collaboration in an online environment. This paper presents wikis as a useful tool for facilitating online education. Basic wiki functionality is outlined and different wikis are reviewed to highlight the features that make them a valuable technology for teaching and learning online. Finally, the paper discuses a wiki project underway at Deakin University. This project uses a wiki to host an icebreaker exercise which aims to facilitate ongoing interaction between members of online learning groups. Wiki projects undertaken in America are outlined and future wiki research plans are also discussed. These wiki projects illustrate how e-learning practitioners can and are moving beyond their comfort zone by using wikis to enhance the process of teaching and learning online.

Ward Cunningham used the word wiki (the Hawaiian word meaning quick) to name the collaborative tool he developed for use on the Internet in 1994. Wikis are fully editable websites. Users can visit, read, re- organise and update the structure and content (text and pictures) of a wiki as they see fit. This functionality is called open editing (Leuf & Cunningham, 2001). All a user needs to edit and read a wiki, is a web browser. Consequently, the wiki has great potential as a tool for online collaboration. Wikis abound on the internet. A well known wiki is Wikipedia an online collaborative encyclopaedia, where anybody can edit and update the site content as they see fit (Wikipedia, 2004). The homepage of Wikipedia is depicted in Figure 1

Figure 1: The Wikipedia wiki encyclopaedia home page

Wikis can be used to ...