In today’s Web 2.0
world, wikis have emerged as a tool that may
complement or replace the use of traditional course
management systems as a tool for disseminating
course information. Because of a wiki’s
collaborative nature, its use also allows students
to participate in the process of course management,
information sharing, and content creation.
Traditional course management systems such as
Blackboard, Moodle, or WebCT
This paper describes best practices for using a
collaborative web application known as a wiki to
augment a traditional course management system.
y introducing a wiki for collaborative
course management, students also learn to interact
with a real world tool, enabling them to accomplish
some tasks that would be more cumbersome if not
impossible using a traditional course management
system.
Wikis are useful for students to share their class
notes (O’Neill, 2005; Guth, 2007). O’Neill proposes
that “the instructor places skeletal lecture notes
onto a wiki site, and students flesh them out with
materials they have learned in class...”
Maloney (2007) suggests that today’s course
management systems are not being used to their
fullest potential. Because they are “built around
the … course, not the … student,”
“The role that the systems
play most often is like that of an advanced
photocopier
a
next-generation CMS must be centered around the
student’s learning, not the course’s
administration
In one project, each group set up its own wiki page
to chronicle work and share materials with other
group members. A template provides the structure for
students to enter their names and tasks completed.
To promote collaboration, two or three students are
assigned specific dates throughout the semester to
post their notes from class to the wiki. To ensure
that they were posted in a timely fashion, students
had to complete their wiki notes prior to the start
of the following class. Classmates then reviewed
these “Wikipedia-style” notes pages, and added
information that they learned but the original
authors may have omitted.
The instructor provided a
template containing the class date, space for the
contributors to enter their names, and a blank page
below for the notes.