Wikis and the Classroom

An interesting article in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education (51.45 (15 July 2005): A35) (the online version may require a password, inquire from one of us and we can give it to you) about using wikis in the classroom. It focuses on professor Mark Phillipson's use of a class wiki to get his students writing about Romantic poetry. The article briefly discusses the uses and benefits of a wiki for annotation, discussion, writing, and class participation.

If you don't know what a wiki is (and that article doesn't explain it well enough for you) check out this article from the most famous wiki, the Wikipedia. Wikipedia has garnered a lot of media attention (especially from librarians) because it is a publicly editable (anyone can edit it) online encyclopedia. Like any other reference source it has its pluses and minuses, but many fear that the lack of traditional peer-review negates its utility as a reference for information.

--Derik A Badman