-- Main.hassan - 26 Sep 2019

An introduction

The purpose of wikis is so that people can work on the content together. Wikis are collaborative published content that can be easily edited by other readers. After registering as a user, every reader can become an author by clicking on the “change button”. While external links are common, interwiki-links on the hypertext level play a much bigger role.

Teachers and students can write on an equal level and links to empty pages can be seen as a call to action. For students, working with wikis can give them a high level of self-reflection which can be a base for productive criticism. Teachers must always keep an eye on the quality of the students’ contribution. There should be clear rules on the goals of the content. The final outcome is more important than the writing process as it should serve the basis for evaluation. A guideline on the homepage of the wiki will help beginners to keep the style of the wiki. The most famous wikis are Wikipedia and Wikiversity.

Teaching scenarios

Common content could be easily developed with Wiki systems so they are particularly suitable for the following scenarios:

• Support with the creation of group presentations and cooperative seminar papers.
• Collecting ideas and documentation of group projects.
• Documentation of teaching events, such as Wikiversity.org

At the HWR

If you would like to teach with wikis, we offer the following possibilities:

• Wikis are integrated into Moodle. It gives the students the chance to work collaboratively. Teachers can set up wikis for group works or individual work. Old versions are never deleted and could be compared with each other or completely remade at any given time.
• Our team can create you your own wiki in Foswiki. Please write us an email at elearning@hwr-berlin.de
• There is also the possibility to use online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia or Wikiversity as a learning and creating tool