What is Wiki and What's It For?

Good day to everyone who are still here. In this post I am going to review such service as Wiki. What is it?

Wiki is a web service for various collaborations. Wiki is a type of server software that allows you to work with data on a remote server on the Web. Users are able to read, edit and publish content through a web interface. Technically, a wiki site is not different from any other sites, with one exception — a teacher and his students can create and edit it together.

I have never used Wiki, nevertheless it seems like a productive and amusing service that can be used in educational process. The similar functions can be found in Google services. They are also based on collaborations, but Wiki allows to create not only documents, but whole web pages. This aspect provides users with much more functions and helps them to provide content for other users in more fun ways.

Among the functions which can help both students and teachers in educationsl process one attracted me the most: Dynamic Group Vocabulary.

How is it done?

1. A teacher develops a template that includes all the aspects of a word unit that needs to be covered in a group vocabulary. Typically, the template would include translation, synonyms, antonyms and contexts.
2. A teacher publishes a list of words that are required for the unit. Students get a task to create vocabulary entries for the words using the pre-designed template. Each vocabulary entry is a separate wiki page linking to the vocabulary index page.
3. As a group, students decide which words each of them works with. Then each student individually creates pages for the designated words, linking them to the word index. As a result, the word index becomes interactive, each word linking to the word pages.
4. To track their progress and contribution, students list the words they worked on in their portfolio, linking to the word pages.

By the time a certain section of the vocabulary is cleared, students have worked rather intensely on parts of it. Next, the teacher needs to use a traditional vocabulary control task with all word units in scope, so that students need to study each other’s word units and learn the section in its entirety. Thanks to a detailed and intensive word unit structure, students are engaged in a much closer and more informative learning process.

So as you can see, more and more opportunities are being created to fully trace the educational process on-line and improve existing in-class activities and independent work.

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