Research+Articles

Two peer reviewed journal articles were consulted in an effort to further understand the background of wiki use in education. Abstracts of those articles are below.


 * __A Wiki for Classroom Writing.__ By: Brian Morgan and Richard D. Smith, in //The Reading Teacher//, 2008.**

Targeting the elementary schools an as audience for wikis, this article touches on the ease of wiki use, and the comparison of a wiki to a word processing software, but with the capability to be easily accessed and edited by peers students, teachers, administrators, and parents. It discusses the advantage of a wiki in helping students collaborate to compose a single document, or to help their peers by offering comments and feedback on individual documents. The access and permissions of specific wikis can be easily controlled by the teacher, to provide a safe working environment for the students. Focusing on the core principle of wikis, collaboration, can encourage more frequent and free participation between students.


 * __Educators Assess ‘Open Content’ Movement__. By: Andrew Trotter, in //Education Week//, January 2009.**

Addressing the “Open Content” movement as a whole, and focusing on wikis as one method of open-content, this article discusses the “small but growing movement of K-12 educators” who are working with and becoming attached to the idea of free websites that promote sharing. Wikis, in addition to other open-content outlets, are a great tool for teacher collaboration and professional growth, where they can share back with the teaching community and beyond their discoveries (specifically discussing science and biology findings). This sharing allows teachers to take ownership of their findings. In elementary education, wikis such as FreeReading allow teachers to collaborate and share curriculum ideas with the goal of improving reading resources for educators.