Using Wikis

Recently I have introduced the class to wikis. A wiki, as most people know, is an editable website. The most famous wiki is Wikipedia, which is an encyclopaedia written for everyone and anyone by anyone and everyone. Accuracy is maintained by the scrutiny of the users.

The wiki that these students have been working on is called "Living Successfully in NZ" and can be viewed at: Student Wiki

Rationale:
Collaboration. I wanted the students to develop their negotiation skills. Their brief was to come up with a document that gave advice to new visitors to NZ about living in NZ. They had to decide themselves what topics might be included, and in teams who was responsible for the different information in different parts of the wiki. You will find that although the students have written about various aspects of NZ life, they haven't yet quite mastered the language of giving advice. Much of the information is simply factual.

Writing to be read: I wanted the students to have an outlet for writing other than producing an exercise for the teacher. This document is live, and can be read by anyone who is sufficiently interested to go there and by each other. There is nothing secret about writing in this forum. Therefore there the added incentive (although very slight) to encourage the students to think about their accuracy, about what they are saying... and about what they mean, because you (the reader) are not likely to be as understanding and patient as I... their teacher.