My idea about using Wiki in my class

Wiki, which pronounces very much like Nikki, sounds so smart and quick. The video about trip planning gives me a clear concept how Wiki can facilitate team work so as to accomplish a common goal. Compared with blog, I think wiki's "open editing" is indeed a big advantage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users. At this point, my excitement is beyond description, since I feel my students (given the necessary accesses) must be fund of this wiki idea as much as I do.




We can enrich our reading materials by sharing between teacher and students or between students themselves, by suggesting reading lists or giving comment on a certain aspect. I even think wiki can be applied to "fertilize" our oral activities. For instance, I may ask my students to design a party. Since this is supposed to be a group activity, as usual every group is asked to make preparation before class, then the suggestion here is to prepare for it through wiki on ideas about theme of the party, thing to prepare, preferred location, desired guests or even the budget. This wiki preparation is more beneficial than merely asking students to talk with each other or taking notes for three reasons: firstly every group member is to be involved, for it is easy to recognize one's contribution to the group work, and the sense of one's job being published and notified appeals more than expressing simply orally and with the idea gone afterwards. Secondly, it is eaiser for students to trace necessary information or supporting detailed by using Wiki, a simple example might be how to make musks for a dress-up party. Thirdly, the preparation outcome can be "preserved" either for teacher's grading (since at present teachers are expected to give process-oriented grades) or for use with the lower-grade learners. By now, a multitude amount of authentic language input and output has already been accumulated much earlier before the oral activity really starts.



Then another way to further explore oral activity is to ask each group to publish the final design of their party, every group member should be responsible for a certain aspect. However, they are only half-done if they have edited their party perfectly. The other half is to edit the work of other groups. The teacher may pair groups or students may choose a group to edit. In my view, peer-editing is one best thing wiki realizes and gives every learner the sense of importance and responsiblity. With such designed tasks in mind, students need to be fully attentive as other groups are giving their presentation and they are surely to voluntarily take necessary notes without the harsh order from the teacher. Like the third advantage I have mentioned about the preparation period, publishing and edit can not only preserve the content for a particular activity, but also help to enhance learners' sense of accomplishment. Since wiki is brand new to me, these ideas here may be rather confined, but I think more and better function may be discovered in wiki for different types of language classes.



Sorry, Nikki, this blog may be too detailed since I am too excited to carry out such wiki program. It may not sound very academic,but I think it is very practial, anyway, the purpose to learn theory is to put them into practice. Do you agree?