Integrating Technology in the Foreign Language Classroom

  
Jean LeLoup & Bob Ponterio 
SUNY Cortland 
© 2008

What's a Wiki ?

You know about Wikipedia, but just what is a wiki anyway? Do Wiki's have a place in your clasroom?

A wiki is an online space that looks like a web page. The difference is that visitors can add and edit the space. You can keep track of changes and who made changes. This makes a wiki an interesting tool for collaboration and for communication.

There are many services that provide a space where individuals can create and manage their own wiki. One popular service for free wikis for K-12 classroom teachers is wikispaces:

http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers

Wikispaces provides free wikis for anyone, but k-12 teachers can get a free wiki without ads that is closed to all except the students in the class. This addresses several concerns about sending students to online spaces.

http://www.wikispaces.com/help+Teachers

In order to explore how a wiki works, we will collaborate as a class to develop an overview of what we think is important in the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia. The wiki space below has been set up for ICC 523:

http://icc523.wikispaces.com/

Read and edit the page. Add information in your own words (no plagiarism please!) Feel free to modify/improve what others have written. Examine the history to see what others have changed, and make comments about the process in the discussion thread.


For more about wikis:



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