What is a wiki and how can they help us learn?

Among the many challenges that university professors face, one of the most important is the increasing demand to use active methodologies in classrooms (some of the more well-known are flipped classroom, project work, collaborative work, or problem solving).

Another educational problem is related to virtual learning (or, as it is known, currently e-learning), that is, all training is carried out via the Internet or connected to the network.

Faced with this situation, wikis are presented as a lifeline as they help teachers navigate this turbulent river, adapt to the demands of an ever-changing society and, of course, meet their learning innovation goals. .

What is a wiki?

The most famous example of a wiki is Wikipedia. If we accurately search this encyclopedia on the Internet for the term wikiwe will find that this word comes from the Hawaiian language and its original meaning was “quickly”.

This data reveals the characteristics of wikis: their speed, which is so in demand in the modern world. And the fact is that wikis are virtual platforms that allow collaborative content creation so that users can quickly, easily and intuitively create, modify, correct or delete shared content.

Thus, with the help of the wiki tool, the collaborative methodology is enabled at the same time that “networked” learning is progressing.

Learning by collaborating at the university

To enable students to co-develop their own learning materials, we have created a challenge to create a wiki. There were three reasons for this activity:

1. Wikis allow all users to edit or modify content, add images, videos, podcasts, etc. without the need for advanced computer knowledge.

2. Wikis support the organization of content by topic, which is especially interesting for learning about the subject.

3. Thanks to the revision history of the wiki, previous versions can be restored, so that the fear of failure or making a mistake disappears to a certain extent.

Wikiling project

The project is called WikiLing 2.0, and we used the Moodle wiki tool to launch it. It is structured in five steps:

1. The preparatory step is to create an empty wiki in the virtual classroom; that is, to propose records for students to work on. In addition, working teams are being formed.

2. In the second phase of the project, each group must complete the information on their assigned wiki entry.

3. In the third, already prepared entries are reviewed. This first check is done by the students themselves (they have to review the record they did not prepare).

4. In the fourth step, the teacher reviews the content of the wiki again and provides appropriate feedback.

5. Finally, in a fifth case, students may be asked to respond to an anonymous and voluntary survey to provide their impressions of the development of the practice.

Little known resource

The survey of our project involved 181 students of various specialties, both full-time and mixed, studying subjects related to the field of linguistics.

After analyzing the responses, the first thing that catches your eye is that they all stated that they never used the wiki. It wasn’t until they were told about the well-known Wikipedia that they realized that it was also a wiki and that they were using it.

This shows initial ignorance of this valuable resource, as it is also the first time students have encountered wiki development.

Low complexity, high utility

However, the fact that the students were not previously familiar with the wiki did not make the task difficult to complete: more than 75% considered that the level of difficulty of the task was very low.

In addition, the students were very positive about the academic opportunities offered by the wiki, with over 90% confirming that this project can be categorized as “very useful” for their learning.

Editors and reviewers

Thanks to the organization of the project at different stages, two differentiated profiles can be distinguished among students: “producers” and “reviewers”. With a near-exact 50% split, some prefer to create content from scratch, while others, perhaps wary of running into a blank slate, feel more comfortable making changes to text. In any case, the wiki helped improve the language skills associated with writing content.

Finally, we compared average grades in subjects with grades in previous courses and were able to see that both the maximum and minimum grades increased, and the number of failures decreased sharply.

Let’s put a wiki in a class!

This experience tells us that collaborative wikis have a positive impact on teaching and learning. They are revealed not only as a motivating resource (due in part to the inclusion of digital tools), but also as a tool for active and collaborative work, whereby students are engaged in the task and contribute to the achievement of a common goal.

These types of tools can also enhance a valuable experience from a teacher’s point of view. As we stated above, wikis are easy to create and populate, intuitive and fast; therefore, with relatively minimal effort, teachers can achieve maximum teaching effectiveness.

In our case, students created their own content, critically assessed the contributions of their classmates, participated in the dynamics of classes, etc., all of which had a positive impact on the teaching and methodological process in the subject being studied.

Cristina V. Erranz-Ljacer Professor of General Linguistics, Royal Juan Carlos University and Ana Segovia Gordillo Professor of General Linguistics, Royal Juan Carlos University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.