Using wikis to teach writing

Since wikis have hit the scene they have been used as repositories of information. Business organizations use wikis to record knowledge about their processes and culture. Fans use wikis to build profiles of their favorite television or film characters. Wikipedia holds a wealth of knowledge on many topics and ideas. It seems that wikis can be used only for creating online encyclopedias. On the contrary, people continue to find many uses for wikis including teaching and practicing writing.
A teacher of any subject can start a wiki where students (and the teacher) can build their store of knowledge on a subject together. Note, ‘grown ups’ in the workplace can use this in a similar fashion (see the last two examples). Here are a few of sample scenarios for using wikis:

1. A middle school history/social studies class develops a section in their wiki on each of the topics they cover in class. Teams of students are responsible for updating the wiki with information on a particular subject. Class invites another history class from a different part of the country or world to contribute to some of their pages and volunteers to contribute to the other class’s wiki in return.
2. A college physics course shares information they gather on particular phenomena. Smaller teams work together on the wiki to develop papers on particular projects. The wiki is used as a place to collaborate and develop a draft.
3. An elementary school class learns about punctuation. The have a page for each of the different rules of punctuation. Each student contributes to the rule page by writing his or her own correct example of usage.
4. A high school English class students work to write scenes of a play that parodies the work of a featured playwright or author. For, example they create a modernized version of Hamlet.
5. A marketing team uses wikis as an ongoing brainstorming area for throwing out random ideas to explore.
6. A software development team uses wiki to document issues and successes with code.

These are some good examples, but what are some general qualities of wikis? How can they be used and what can the be used for? If you were to evaluate wikis for their practical applications, they could be used to do the following:

•    Knowledge sharing and building over a period of time
•    Explaining diverse ideas or differing viewpoints
•    Combining ideas and information
•    Developing an on going dialogue about an idea, concept or argument

Naturally, wikis can be a good tool for practicing the skill of writing. For example, as part of a writing workshop, students can post versions of their writing on a wiki for their classmates to provide editing and feedback. As editors, students can use different text colors and styles to apply their suggestions or changes. Also, two or more students can collaborate or work on a single piece of writing at once. For example, they could each take turns writing dialogue for a specific character in a play or story. For practical purposes, the writing and editing of any particular document should be restricted to a small group of students as opposed to an entire class. This would help eliminate the confusion of having “too many writers in the soup.”
Students can also develop their content for a particular assignment such as a report, investigation, or even piece of writing on a wiki. The wiki can contain sub pages that organize both their process and content. The WetPaint information site offers a few ideas for implementing wikis in your classroom.   A group project wiki could include a place for the writing project schedule, a brainstorming area, research resource list, and a place to write the rough draft of the work.  Each section of the work can be divided into different pages where students can write independently.
Wikis can be used as more than vocabulary banks or encyclopedias. In fact, are many applications for teaching collaborative writing and the possibilities are almost endless. No doubt resourceful and creative teachers and students can probably find more uses of wikis on their own.

Additional Resources:

• Teaching Readers and Writers Workshop Wiki – Resource for teachers
• The Way of the Wiki: Building Online Creativity and Cooperation