Our+experience+with+wikis

I have had some experience using wikis and I have found them quite useful, especially if you are teaching, for instance, writing which is one of the first motivations behind the idea of creating wiki applications. The best example of it is Wikipedia where everyone can make any post and edit others’ contents and so forth. Although for our project we are using Wiki Spaces, I personally prefer Pb.works which in my opinions offers better applications and layouts. An example of a pb.works wiki that I created last year can be found in this link: @http://funwithenglish.pbworks.com/w/page/32995865/FrontPage (just in case anyone is interested)
 * Personal encounters with wikis**

One the best strengths of wikis is that it empowers students by enhancing their feeling of authorship. That is to say, rather than depending only on one reader’s feedback: the teacher, they are given the chance to be read by others: their classmates. Thus, students embrace a more dialogic process of writing and revision. As a pedagogical tool to complement a teachers’ lesson, wikis are very useful. For instance in the link that I provide above, I develop a lesson for foreign language learners of intermediate level. The wiki basically allows me to make available all the materials needed for the lesson, through videos, readings and links. This shows that wikis are not only useful to work on the writing skill but all language skills.

José A. Álvarez V.