Wikis

Richarson's chapter on Wikis has me reevaluating my Wikipedia stance.  I love playing the Wikipedia game and I find it a valuable tool for me to use.  I used to let students use it as a resource but then I was convinced it had too many flaws.  Now I'm back to thinking it may be okay for students to use as ONE of their sources or as a starting point for research.

I've been wanting to use wikis in my class for themes in world history.  However, I've never assigned the wiki because I don't feel comfortable giving my students anymore homework than they already have.  Reading Richardson's ideas about wikis, I realized I could use a wiki for an assignment I already give.

Last semester, our team ran into a problem with test reviews.  We don't require students complete them, but completing the review to some degree is pretty helpful on the test.  Some of the TAG (gifted and talented) students created a facebook site or some sort of social networking site to "collaborate" on the test review.  Initially, we were quite pleased with them for working together.  We never saw the site, but after a few tests we found most students had not spent any time working on the review themselves and were simply printing off the review their peers completed.  The students who created the site confirmed their was little collaboration.  My students told me they assumed the answers were correct because TAG students created it.

I would like to try collaboration on the test review again using the wiki function on Moodle.  Perhaps if the teachers go in and make comments on 1 or 2 items that are not correct on the TAG students' work, other students will find they are not perfect and feel free to comment.  I'm thinking if we make just a few comments such as, "why?," "are you sure?", etc. the student will take care of the rest.  Hopefully, the students would take care of the discussion once they felt they could criticize the "smart" kids.  This would also allow us to monitor areas where the students were struggling before the test.  Do you think this would work?  Is it a good use of a wiki?