CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers
Wikis in Lan guag e T eac hing Jane Harvey
I’ve always been a great believer in cooperative and collaborative learning in my French classes; I really feel that students can learn a lot from each other in a way that they can’t from me, and I really like the group responsibility idea too. But I was always frustrated when it came to writing. Two or three students writing together is practical – they can all be involved in the composition process. Any more than that, however, and problems start: Only three can see the paper at any one time, and giving a collaborative writing assignment for homework is impossible. That’s why I’ve found wikis to be so exciting. Even as many as ten students can collaborate on one writing assignment, and the great thing is I can keep track of how much each individual has been involved with the editing. The students enjoy working on the wikis too, especially because it’s so easy to add graphics and links to what they write. 8th Grade French Teacher
The History of Wikis The word wiki comes from the Hawai’ian wiki-wiki, which means ‘quick.’ It was first used by Ward Cunningham in 1995 as a name for the authoring tool he created, with a view to encouraging more people to publish on the web. Wikis were popularized by Jimmy D.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers Wales when he created the famous Wikipedia in 2001, which is basically an online encyclopedia produced and edited by the public at large. Check it out at Wikipedia.org.
What Wikis Are And What They Ca n Do Wikis are basically web pages that anyone with Internet access can edit. That is the way Wikipedia works. It has been produced by people all over the world who have decided to share their knowledge with no thought of acknowledgement or compensation. Anyone can access Wikipedia, edit or change existing pages or add a new page without any specialized programming knowledge. And this happens every day. In 2006, Wikipedia had around 2.7 million entries in it (Borja, 2006), in ten different languages, on topics that you would find in the Encyclopedia Britannica to breaking news. Richardson (2006) reports that the first posting about the 2004 Tsunami appeared around nine hours after the event, and “twenty-four hours after the first mention, the entry had been edited more than 400 times and had grown to about 3,000 words, complete with some of the first photographs of the devastation, a chart documenting the dead and injured, and other graphics describing how the tsunami was spawned” (p. 61). Today the entry is around 7,200 words long. By and large, Wikipedia tries to be free of bias and inaccuracies, because it is the sum total of people’s knowledge, not that of any one person. Indeed, Wikipedia has been called one of the most accurate encyclopedias (Jobs, 2007). Obviously, because Wikipedia is open to anyone to edit, there is a certain amount of ‘vandalism’ that goes on; for example, people deleting sections, or adding offensive or inappropriate content. At the time of writing, in fact, there is a good deal of controversy about the value of Wikipedia, and a co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, is setting up a new online encyclopedia called Citizendia, to which only credentialed experts can contribute.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers Wikipedia is now a very common and much used resource for students of all kinds. Wikis themselves are also being used very successfully in the K-12 classroom. As part of a writing project, Paul Allison of East Side Community School in Manhattan created a site which many students and teachers at the school have contributed to on many different subjects (see http://schools.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page). Dan McDowell is using a wiki with his classes both for a Holocaust project, and as an AP world history review. Students collaborate
to
post
information
that
can
be
accessed
by
anyone
(see
http://www.ahistoryteacher.com/~ahistory/apwhreview/index.php?title=Main_Page) . There are many pedagogical advantages of using wikis in classrooms in general. One of the main advantages is that it promotes collaboration among students. They have to critically read the work posted by their colleagues and expand on it or edit it. Wikis promote more student-centered teaching in that students themselves have control over what is written and what stays on the wiki pages. Indeed, Richardson (2006) suggests that the less control the teacher exerts, the more successful the wiki project. Another advantage is the flexibility of wikis. Students can incorporate links to other websites or use pictures and other graphics to spruce up what they write. This is clearly appealing to the digital generation, who are not used to seeing only words on a page. Similarly, students can decide to create a one-page wiki, or can spread their work over a number of pages. Garza and Hern (2006) suggest that wikis make writing seem more of a process than a series of static drafts that are tweaked and twiddled. The negotiation involved in the collaboration on a wiki project necessarily helps students develop successful problem-solving skills. To facilitate this, many wikis offer an option called “Discussion” or “Comments” where students can discuss issues with each other, give reasons for changes, disagree with what someone else has written (Achterman, 2006). Again, as mentioned above, most wikis have a “History” option which when clicked, shows
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers what changes have been made, and often by whom. This is very helpful as a diagnostic tool for the teacher, to decide who needs what help. There are also several features of wikis that make them easy to use. As mentioned above, most wikis need no special knowledge to use. You just go to the wiki site and type in what you need to. Many sites use the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) set up similar to the Word interface, and you just click on Edit to change something, and Save to….save it! Wikis can be set up so that students work individually, in small groups, or in larger groups, so teachers are not constrained to use the wiki in the same way for every project. Another useful feature of wikis is that if a student deletes (accidentally!!) a page or part of a page, it can be easily restored. Each edit is saved and you just click on the History option and find the previous version, which you can then restore by saving it.
Working within Wikipe dia One easy and useful way of getting to know how wikis work is by navigating around Wikipedia pages, and ‘playing’ with them.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers ♦ Go to Wikiedia.org ♦ Click on English
♦ Choose a topic that is interesting to you and type it into the search box on the left and click ‘Go.’ We’ll choose ‘Day of the Dead.’ Here you can read about what it is and how it is observed inside and outside Mexico.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers ♦ Now let’s see how Wikipedia works. First, have a look at the Discussion page. Each Wikipedia entry has a discussion page. This is the page where people discuss what is written on the entry. Click on the Discussion tab at the top of the page. Scroll down and see what people have been discussing.
♦ Now you’re ready to start really interacting with Wikipedia. Type your home town into the search box on the left hand side of the page. Mine is Haverfordwest. Read through the page and see if you can see anything that needs changing – I found some spelling typos on this page.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers
♦ You can explore the page more or click on any of the links to get more information. ♦ Now click on the ‘Edit this page’ tab and you can see the ‘raw’ page with all the codes. However, most of the page will be just text, which you can change. If you have spotted something that needs changing, change it, and click on ‘Save page’ near the bottom of the page. If you’re feeling really adventurous, put in something that you know is wrong. Check back in a few days to see if it has been changed back.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers
That basically is the principle on which all wikis work. Now it may be time for the wiki prayer: Please, grant me the serenity to accept the pages I cannot edit, The courage to edit the pages I can, And the wisdom to know the difference. (http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0452.asp) So far we have been using Wikipedia. This is the ‘grandfather of all wikis. Now we are going to see how we can use wikis in our schools and classes.
Looking at Examples Let’s look now at how some schools have used wikis. Browse around some of these sites: http://theneighborhoodschool.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers If you click on ‘Here is a list of our articles.’ you can see the huge list of articles that are in this wiki. You can use this for ideas for you class dictionary (see Activity 2).
The at http://www.ahistoryteacher.com/~ahistory/apwhreview/index.php?title=Main_Page might be a useful model for a cultural wiki in either English or in the foreign language.
And then there’s this one for teachers. http://teacherslounge.editme.com/ You have to register to use it, and there is not much on it about foreign language teaching, but there is a lot of potential for collaboration between teachers.
OK, now it’s time to think about setting up your own wiki. The first decision to make is which of the free wiki hosting sites to use. Let’s use one of the easiest to use: pbwiki.com. Another option is www.wikispaces.com. This web page has a list of a lot more, some of which are available free of charge: http://www.wikimatrix.org/. ♦ Go to pbwiki.com
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers
♦ Click on ‘Take a tour’ to see how the wiki site works
♦ On the main page (See step 1) put in the name of your wiki (let’s use Firstwiki followed by your name). Type in your email address in the appropriate box. Click
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers ‘Create my wiki’. If the next page tells you that the name is already in use, try putting a number after your name
♦ The website will process your request. While you are waiting, you can watch a short movie about pbwiki.
♦ You need to go to your email and in the message that pbwiki sends, click on the link to open your wiki. When you click, you will get this page. Choose a password and
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers type it into the two boxes. Choose the purpose of the wiki from the drop-down menu. Make sure the ‘Make my wiki public’ box is clicked. That will allow others to access your wiki, which is important for using the wiki with a class. Click in the ‘Agree to our terms of service box,’ and leave the ‘New Point-and-Click editor’ as your choice (it’s easier to edit with this). Then click ‘Take me to my wiki!’ ♦ You will see a page like this. Now we are going to make a page. It’s going to be called “What Americans eat.” We are doing one in English aimed at ESOL students, but obviously you could do this in any language. Click on New page
♦ Type in the name of the page: “What Americans eat.” Choose ‘No template’ (you can experiment with other templates later). Click on ‘Create new page.’
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers
♦ This is the page where you write and edit. You can see that the top of the page looks very much like a normal word processing toolbar, and the tools work in the same way. Using them, you and your students can compose and edit anything. You could put in headings, and ask your students to fill in the information. ♦ While they are writing, your students can insert a link to a webpage. To do that, first you need to choose a webpage to link to. Then, you click on ‘Link’ at the top of the page.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers ♦ When you see this page, select ‘URL’ from the ‘Link Type’ drop-down menu.
♦ Type or copy in the address of the webpage (Here I’ve used a link to a Wikipedia page). Then, underneath, type in the text that you want to use as the link. It could be as simple as ‘Click here’ or longer, such as ‘This page will help you with your research.’ Then click ‘OK.’ You can add as many links as you like to this page. ♦ Now let’s add a picture. Click on ‘Insert image’ at the top of the page.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers ♦ Click browse and select the picture file. (You can choose a picture from the web, for example, Google Image, right click on the picture, choose ‘Save as,’ and save it to your desktop. Then you can choose the desktop file of the picture when you click ‘Browse.’)
Then click ‘Upload.’ You will see the file under the box. As the
instructions say, select the picture and click ‘OK.’ ♦ The picture will appear where the cursor was. You can insert more pictures, though there is a storage limit in pbwiki.
♦ Notice at the bottom of the page that there is a place for you to write your name to show who edited the page. This can be useful for class or group projects so that you can keep track of what your individual students are doing. ♦ When you have finished your page, click ‘Save.’ You can then view your wiki page. ♦ Make sure that you note down the URL address of the page so that you can go back to it or give it to your students.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers ♦ If you want to create a link to another page in pbwiki.com, first you have to create a new page. Do this by clicking on ‘New page’. Write in the name of the new page; we’ll call this one ‘What Americans eat: Breakfast.’ Click on ‘Create new page.’
♦ Highlight the URL in the address line, right click on your mouse and click ‘Copy.’ Then go back to the original ‘What Americans eat’ page by clicking on the back arrow in the top left hand corner of the window ♦ Click on the ‘Edit page’ tab. Highlight the word ‘Breakfast.’ Then click on the ‘Link’ icon on the toolbar (see Step 9). A box will appear. In the ‘Link type’ dropdown menu, choose ‘WikiPage.’ In the ‘Link to WikiPage’ dropdown menu, choose ‘What Americans eat: Breakfast.’ Then write ‘Breakfast’ in the ‘Link text’ box. Click ‘OK.’ ♦ On the original ‘What Americans eat’ page now, the word ‘Breakfast’ is blue and underlined. It has now become a link to your new page. Click ‘Save,’ and then click on the word ‘Breakfast’ and it will take you to your new page. You can create any number of links to new pages in this way.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers You’re now ready to use wikis in your classes.
Tricks and Traps Trap: If your class wiki is public, as it would be if you use some of the Wiki sites mentioned earlier, then in theory it’s possible for anyone to enter it and make any changes they like. There is, therefore, a possibility of vandalism from inside or outside the class. Trick: Some wiki sites allow you to restrict entry to the site by means of a password so that if you give your students the password, only they will have access to the wiki. Also, you can negate the effect of any damaging edits by going to the History tab, and restoring a previous version of the page. Trap: It is difficult to give individual evaluation grades for collaborative writing activities. Trick: Give group writing grades for wiki projects, and use other tasks to give individual grades. Have a look at some literature of cooperative learning to find ideas about how collaboration helps students. Trap: Wiki sites such as pbwiki.com and wikispaces.com are public and commercial social networking sites. Your school or school district may have policies that prevent your using them on school computers. Trick: There is software available so that your school server can host wikis. This is something that you need to discuss with your school administration.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers Trap: It is tempting for teachers to try to control what students write and include on their wikis, perhaps because they are afraid that students will not use the application well. This might stifle students in what they produce on the wiki and limit the amount of ownership they take over their product. Trick: Giving students complete editorial control gives them a sense of responsibility and ownership for the site, and encourages them to produce good quality work. Also, past experience with wikis suggests that if the students take ownership of their wiki, they will be less likely to vandalize it. Trap: The editing functions on wiki sites do not usually have the facility for writing in non-Roman scripts or putting accents on letters. Trick: Some keyboard shortcuts work on some wiki sites in the same way as they do in Word. Also, if you are using, for example the Cyrillic script, you (and your students) can write what they want to in Word and then copy and paste it into their wiki. Trap: If two students work on the same wiki at the same time, one student will probably save the wiki page first. When the second student saves his or her work, the first student’s work will not be saved. Trick: If you click on the ‘History’ link at the bottom of the page, you can see previous versions of the page. You can use these previous versions to combine the two students’ work.
Now Enjoy Wikis With Your Students:
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers Here are several suggested activities to get you started. Note that before doing a wiki, you, the teacher, would probably have to teach students how to use wikis.
Activity 1: Group Culture Project! ♦ Nature of activity: Collaborative writing about a cultural topic ♦ Type of activity: Group activity. ♦ Proficiency levels: Intermediate and above. ♦ Time: Allow 30 minutes for setting up the project and then more class and homework time for students to research and write. ♦ Skills: Reading, writing and research skills. ♦ Additional material: Websites on the cultural aspect. Procedures: (1) The teacher divides students up into collaborative groups and sets up as many wiki pages as there are collaborative groups. (2) The teacher or the students select the topic or topics that students are going to write about (for example, Bullfighting in Spain, Education in Germany, etc). The teacher writes one or two paragraphs, in the target language, which could serve as an introduction to each project, including language errors for students to find and correct, if desired. (3) Students research the topic/s and add more information about the topic, including any links and pictures they want to. (4) Students can then read (and comment on) their classmates’ pages.
National Standards met in this activity: 1.2, 1.3, 2.2, 5.1 ISTE: I-B, II-A, II-B, II-E, III-A, III-B, III-C, III-D
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers
Activity 2: Class Dictionary! ♦ Nature of activity: Collaborative compilation of a class dictionary ♦ Type of activity: Group activity. ♦ Proficiency levels: All levels. ♦ Time: Allow 20 minutes for setting up and explaining the task, and students will contribute to the dictionary on an ongoing basis. ♦ Skills: Vocabulary research and defining skills. ♦ Additional material: Online and traditional monolingual and bilingual dictionaries. Procedures: (1) The teacher sets up a wiki for use as the class dictionary. This can consist of one page, or a series of pages. The vocabulary can be organized according to topic, or perhaps more easily, alphabetically. (2) During lessons, the teacher highlights vocabulary (words and phrases) which are important for students to learn. (3) The class can decide as a group what elements need to be put into the dictionary, for example, a definition of the word or phrase, a possible translation, an example sentence, information on pronunciation, and so forth. (4) Students are put into small groups, and each group is assigned a period of time when they are responsible for adding class vocabulary to the wiki. (5) The teacher can assign students tasks to be done with the help of the class dictionary, for example, Write a story/paragraph using at least ten words from the class dictionary.
National Standards met in this activity: 1.3, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers ISTE: I-B, II-A, II-B, III-A, III-B, III-C, III-D
Activity 3: Class Grammar! ♦ Nature of activity: Collaborative compilation of a class grammar ♦ Type of activity: Group activity. ♦ Proficiency levels: All levels. ♦ Time: Allow 20 minutes for setting up and explaining the task, and students will contribute to the grammar on an ongoing basis. ♦ Skills: Grammar knowledge and explanation. ♦ Additional material: Online and traditional grammars of the target language. Procedures: (1) The teacher sets up a wiki for use as the class grammar. This can consist of only one page, or probably better, a series of pages, one for each topic. (2) After a new grammar point has been introduced and practiced, students in groups are asked to create an entry in the wiki that will serve as a reference resource for the whole class. (3) The class can decide as a group what elements need to be put into the grammar page, for example, the form and use of the grammar point, examples of use, and so forth. (4) Individuals or groups of students can be asked to add points to the grammar, and the class as a whole can be asked to edit and revise it. (5) The teacher can use the class grammar as a basis for pop quizzes, homework assignments, and so forth.
National Standards met in this activity: 1.2, 1.3, 2.2, 5.1
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers ISTE: I-B, II-A, II-B, II-E, III-A, III-B, III-C, III-D
Activity 4: Round Robin Summary Wikis! Create A Wiki As You Learn A Unit Of Work ♦ Nature of activity: Watching and writing about a video. ♦ Type of activity: Individual or small group activity. ♦ Proficiency levels: All levels. ♦ Time: At least one whole lesson. ♦ Skills: Writing and summarizing. ♦ Additional material: Computer laboratory. Short online video clips. Procedures: (1) For this activity, the teacher creates a number of wiki pages, each containing a link to a short video in the target language on YouTube, or other site. The videos can pertain to the topic of that week’s lessons (e.g. Food, Sport, etc.) or they can be of general interest. The number of wiki pages will depend on the number of students in the class, the number of computers available, and whether the teacher wants the students to work individually or in small groups. (2) Each computer shows a different wiki page with a link to a YouTube video. (3) The individual students or groups of students at each computer watch the video and write a summary of the video in the target language. (4) After a certain time depending on the length of the video and the level of the students, the teacher asks the students to move on to the next computer. (5) There, they watch the video on that page and then edit and improve the summary written by the student or students who were previously at that computer. (6) After a shorter time, again depending on the video and the students’ level, they move to the next
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers computer. (7) If there is not enough time for students to complete the activity in class, it can be resumed in a later lesson. (8) Each student or group of students can be made responsible for the final quality of the first video they watched.
National Standards met in this activity: 1.2, 1.3, 3.1, 3.2, 5.1 ISTE: I-B, II-A, II-B, II-E, III-A, III-B, III-C, III-D
Activity 5: Home Town Wikipedia Page! ♦ Nature of activity: Creating or editing a page on Wikipedia. ♦ Type of activity: Whole class activity. ♦ Proficiency levels: Intermediate and above. ♦ Time: Allow 20 minutes for setting up and explaining the task. The initial phase of the task could take a whole lesson, but bulk of the task can be assigned as homework. ♦ Skills: Reading and writing skills. Possibly translation skills. ♦ Additional material: Wikipedia. Procedures: (1) Students will access the target language Wikipedia page of their hometown. (2) They will edit the page adding any information they feel is important. They can use any resource, but a useful one would be the EnglishWikipedia page about their hometown. This will involve them translating passages from the English language page into the target
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers language. (3) Individuals or groups of students could be made responsible for different sections of the page. It may be desirable for a group of editors to oversee the whole project. Note: There are obviously many other topics, and therefore Wikipedia pages, that could lend themselves to this type of activity. They could also work on the English translation of a page in the target language.
National Standards met in this activity: 1.2, 1.3, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2 ISTE: I-B, II-A, II-B, II-E, III-A, III-B, III-C, III-D
Activity 6: The Sentence Wiki! ♦ Nature of activity: Writing sentences. ♦ Type of activity: Individual or small group activity. ♦ Proficiency levels: Beginners. ♦ Time: 30 – 40 minutes ♦ Skills: Writing sentences. Accuracy focused. ♦ Additional material: Computer laboratory. Procedures: (1) For this activity, the teacher creates a number of wiki pages, each containing a word or short phrase familiar to the students. The number of wiki pages will depend on the number of students in the class, the number of computers available, and whether the teacher wants the students to work individually or in small groups. (2) Each computer shows a different wiki page, with a different word or short phrase on it. (3) Students sit at a computer and have to create a sentence containing the word or short phrase. (4) After about five or ten 24
CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers minutes, students move to the next computer. They read the sentence that is there and if necessary edit it. Then they must add something to the sentence. This can be an adjective or adverb, a whole phrase, or even another clause. (5) After five minutes, they move to the next sentence, and do the same. (6) The activity finishes when all the students have visited all the sentences, or when the lesson ends. (7) As a follow-up activity, students can be asked to access each of the pages at home, choose one sentence, and write one or more sentences to follow it.
Note: A picture or a link on the wiki page could also serve as a prompt for sentence writing.
National Standards met in this activity: 1.3, 2.2, 4.1 ISTE: I-B, II-A, II-B, II-E, III-A, III-B, III-C, III-D
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers
References Achterman, D. (2006). Beyond "wikipedia". Teacher Librarian, 34(2), 19-22. Augar, N., Raitman, R., & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. Paper presented at the Beyond the Comfort Zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE, Perth, Australia.
95-104.
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from
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html Borja, R. R. (2006). Educators experiment with student-written 'wikis'. Education Week, 25(30), 10. Challborn, C., & Reimann, T. (2005). Wiki products: A comparison [computer file]. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 6(2), 1. Clyde, L. A. (2005). Wikis. Teacher Librarian, 32(4), 54-56. Engstrom, M. E., & Jewett, D. (2005). Collaborative learning the wiki way. TechTrends, 49(6), 12-15, 68. Garza, L. S., & Hern, T. (2006). Using wikis as collaborative writing tools: Something wiki this
way
comes--or
not!
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from
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/10.1/binder2.html?http://falcon.tamucc.edu/wiki/WikiArticle /Home Honegger, B. D. (2005). Wikis: A rapidly growing phenomenon in the german school community. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2005 International Symposium on Wikis,
113-116.
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from
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1110000/1104983/p113-honegger.pdf Jakes, D. (2006). Wild about wikis. Technology & Learning, 27(1), 6, 8, 11. Locke, T. (2006). Wiki skills are essential in academics and life. American Teacher, 91(2), 4. McPherson, K. (2006). Wikis and literacy development. Teacher Librarian, 34(1), 67-69. McPherson, K. (2006). Wikis and student writing. Teacher Librarian, 34(2), 70-72.
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CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers Oatman, E. (2005). Make way for wikis. School Library Journal, 51(11), 52-54. Parslow, G. R. (2005). Commentary: Wiki: The fast way to collaborative authoring. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 33(5), 371. Richardson, W. (2005). What's a wiki? MultiMedia & Internet @ Schools, 12(6), 17-20. Stahmer, T. (2006). Think outside the blog. Technology & Learning, 26(6), 28, 30.
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