when?

= When do teachers use Wikis? =


 * **Science Fair Projects** - A wiki could be set up for middle or high school students to brainstorm ideas for and plan science fair projects. Initially it would mostly be brainstorming, posting ideas and information to back them up. As they begin to flesh out the ideas that they are interested in, small groups might form to work on individual projects, but could still contribute ideas to other projects. The teacher can act as a facilitator by offering suggestions and asking probing questions to get students to consider particular aspects in the planning of their projects. The wiki could also be used to record and organize data, and plan eventual papers/presentations.
 * **Student Portfolios** - A wiki makes an easy shell for electronic portfolios where students can display and discuss their work with others. It would also be an excellent forum for peer editing and peer feedback to help students improve their writing skills.
 * **WikiOrganization** - I used a local wiki on my computer to organize materials for a paper. I was able to save weblinks, documents, and quotes to the wiki and then just go to that particular page as I was writing. Finally, I linked the final product to the wiki. Wikis are a great organizational tool especially in a time when many of our classroom resources are digital and networked.
 * **Collaborative Understanding** - If I were to teach middle school music again, I would try to use a Wiki as part of a music history/music study project for students to clarify their understanding of different styles of music. For example, back in the day, I had 2 or 3 classes of "beginners" each year. As we listened to different examples of music and of singing, I tried to help them understand how the different styles were related to each other (i.e., blues and hip hop). Using a Wiki would allow them to also share links to examples of music to support their ideas and opinions. I would then try to incorporate this project into one of our choir concerts to show that learning about music is about more than just singing or playing an instrument. (And this is based on the assumption that we would have access to computers in the school, and that the students would be able to use the computers after school if they did not have a computer at home.)
 * **Collaboration Between Teachers** - The person I'm doing my consulting project with, after seeing our wiki and learning how they work, suggested using them for teachers to teach collaboratively, which is a use I hadn't thought of originally but could have a lot of potential. They could work together creating lesson plans, track how the lessons are being implemented in their various classrooms, give suggestions - this could be a few teachers in the same middle school doing an interdisciplinary unit, or teachers of the same subject in distant places working on the same unit together.
 * **Literature Circles in Elementary School** - Elementary students, particularly fourth and fifth grade in our district have Lit Circles. They all read the same book and then are required to answer questions about the material and pose questions. A Wiki would be a perfect way to integrate technology into thier Lit Cirles. Instead of sharing their thoughts on paper, they could post them to the wiki, respond to their peers thoughts or questions and best of all perserve this work for the next class to review at sometime during ther exploration of the same novel. Each of our elementary classrooms has at least two computers.

Information from: http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Wiki_in_a_K-12_classroom

= 50 Ways to Use a Wiki = Using these ideas, your students can collaboratively create classroom valuables.
 * Resource Creation**
 * **Virtual field trips **: Have your students research far away places they would like to go on a field trip, and get them to share images and information about the location.
 * **Create presentations **: Instead of using traditional presentation software, put presentations on a wiki.
 * **Write a Wikibook **: Make it a class project to collaboratively write a reference book that others can use.
 * **Study guides **: Ask students to create study guides for a specific part of the unit you’re studying.
 * **Readers’ guides **: Have your students create readers’ guides to share their favorite and most important parts of works you’ve read in class.
 * **Solving wiki **: Post difficult math problems, such as calculus, so that the class can collaboratively solve them.
 * **Glossary **: Get your class to create a glossary of terms they use and learn about in new units, adding definitions and images.
 * **Class encyclopedia **: Ask your class to create an "encyclopedia" on a topic, adding useful information that can be built upon through the years.
 * **Create exploratory projects **: If you’re teaching a new subject, ask your students to collect and share information in the wiki so that you can learn together

These projects are sure to get your students involved.
 * Student Participation**
 * **Exam review **: Encourage students to share review notes and other helpful pieces of information on your classroom’s wiki.
 * **Peer review **: Allow students to draft their papers in a wiki, then ask other students to comment it.
 * **Student portfolios **: Assign portfolio pages to each of your students, and allow them to display and discuss their work.
 * **Correction competition **: You can post a document riddled with mistakes, then have students compete to see who can fix the most errors fastest.
 * **Peer editing **: Ask students to edit each others’ work for spelling, grammar, and facts based on a style guide or rules you’ve defined.
 * **Vocabulary lists **: Encourage students to submit words that they had trouble with, along with a dictionary entry.
 * **Get feedback **: Ask students to post comments on wiki pages.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Share notes **: Let your students share their collective information so that everyone gets a better understanding of the subject.

Allow wikis to facilitate group work by using these ideas.
 * Group Projects**
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Group authoring **: By asking groups to use central documents in a wiki, you can ensure that everyone’s documentation will be uniform.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Timelines **: Have your students create a history timeline.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Organize ideas **: Allow group members to post their ideas in a wiki, and you’ll cut down on duplicate ideas, while at the same time allowing them to build upon the ideas.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Fan clubs **: Start fan clubs for your students’ favorite figures from history and ask them to contribute their favorite quotes, photos, and other tidbits together.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Track projects **: With wikis, it’s easy for students to see which tasks have been completed and which ones still need to be fulfilled.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Track participation **: Assign a wiki page to a group project, and then individual pages for each student to show their participation.

Get your students to work together on these projects.
 * Student Interaction**
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Collect data **: Use central documents to make sure that data collection is uniform and easy to manage.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Mock-debate **: Pit two class candidates against each other and perform a debate on your wiki.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Study buddy matching **: Let students match themselves up into study buddy pairs.
 * **Multi-author story**: Start a creative writing unit, and get your students to write a short story together, each writing a small amount of the story.
 * **Choose your own adventure story**: A twist on the multi-author story could be a choose your own adventure story, where each student branches out into a different path.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Share reviews **: Post articles for different movies, books, and TV shows, encouraging students to share what they though about them.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Literature circles **: Host a book club on your wiki where students are required to read the same book, then discuss it on the wiki.

Use your wiki to create spaces that are special to your class.
 * For the Classroom**
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Classroom FAQ **: Make it a class project to create an FAQ for your classroom that will help new students and those that will come in years later.
 * **Classroom scrapbook**: Share news, photos, and current achievements in your classroom on a wiki page.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Calendar **: Create a calendar on the wiki and encourage students to add their own personally important dates.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Classroom newspaper **: Create your own news outlet on a wiki.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Hall of fame **: Highlight students’ exceptional achievements on the wiki.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Classroom policies **: Encourage students to draft rules and policies for the classroom

Reach out to the community with these resources that everyone can appreciate.
 * Community**
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">School tour **: Get your class to take photos of your school and write about their favorite spots on the wiki, then share it with the rest of your school and your local community.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Recipe book **: Ask students to bring in their favorite recipes from home, then share them with parents and the rest of the community.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">International sharing **: Collaborate with a class from another country and share information about your culture, or even a day in the life of a typical student.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Local history **: Document historical buildings, events, and more from our community. You can ask students to perform interviews, and encourage parents and other adults to contribute their knowledge in the wiki.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Community FAQ **: Ask students to create an FAQ for their community, then pass it on to your next group of students.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Community nature guide **: Have your students collect highlights of plants and animals in your community.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Share achievements **: Let parents log in to the wiki to see what their children have accomplished.

Here are even more fun and useful ways to improve your classroom with a wiki.
 * Other**
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Let your students leave their books at school **: With a strong classroom wiki, you should have a wealth of information available, so much so that students can leave their books at school and access information online.
 * **Use wikis as a hub**: Any time a student creates anything online, ask them to link to it or upload it to the wiki so that everyone can use it.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Make website creation easier for students **: Using a wiki platform, students don’t have to worry about web design, so they can focus on content instead.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Organization **: Save links, documents, and quotes related to units or your classroom as a whole.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Track assignments **: If you ask students to put their research on wikis, you can check in on their progress to make sure they’re on the right path.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Teacher collaboration **: Work with other teachers to create lesson plans and track students’ success.
 * **<span class="wiki_link_ext">Create and pass a legislative bill **: Let students see the back and forth that exists in legislation by creating their own and attempting to pass it

Information from:http://www.smartteaching.org/