Wikis in the Foreign Language Classroom

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Wikis in theForeign Language Classroom
AATF 2007Baton Rouge, LA

• Gail Corder
• Director of Educational Technology/ French
  Teacher
• Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX

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What is a wiki?

• Web 2.0 Focus on participation rather than
  simply looking at information
• Web page that anyone (with permission) can edit
• Creator of wiki has administrative control, can
  assign others to serve administrative functions
• Collaborative in nature

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Blogs vs. wikis

• Can subscribe to blogs via RSS aggregator
• Multiple users can add to a blog, but only the
  owner can change it fundamentally.

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Blogs vs wikis

• The key difference to keep in mind is that a
  true wiki is actively collaborative, that is,
  anyone can edit the document at any point in the
  document, whether that is to insert a comma,
  strike a sentence, or add an additional page.
  Blogs tend to function more like monologues, or
  pronouncements from the author(s) to which
  readers may append their own comments without the
  ability to alter the original blog text. --
  Wikipedia

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Examples of wikis
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Wikipedia anyone can contribute
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• Administrators have control over content.

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Examples of wikis

• WikiTravel
• Collaborative travel guide
• Phrasebooks
• Discussion boards

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Wikis in Education

• Design Patterns
• Bernie Dodge, creator of the WebQuest

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Best Uses in Foreign Language

• Any of the seven models could be adapted for use
  in the foreign language classroom however the
  following lend themselves most easily to foreign
  language instruction
• Micropedia
• FAQ
• Branching Story
• Exegesis

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Micropedia

• Creating a mini-encyclopedia
• Students in groups
• Each group assigned one topic to research and
  post article
• Each group must also validate two other articles
• Could be done with AP essay

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Micropedia
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FAQ

• Organized around questions and answers
• Students are assigned a topic of any nature -
  cultural, language oriented, or any topic which
  could be discussed in the target language.
• Holidays in Spain
• False cognates
• How to survive Spanish IV
• Any area in which students already have expertise
• Students write a short summary article about the
  topic in the target language
• Students generate and post questions about other
  topics
• Reponses to questions are posted by those who
  wrote the articles

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FAQ
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Branching Story

• Given a writing prompt, students generate pages
  to build a create your own adventure story.
• Start in large groups which become smaller as
  groups branch off to take charge of a particular
  section.
• Higher order thinking skills

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Branching Story
Terry the Tennis Ball A Choose Your Own
Adventure Story
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Exegesis

• Students are given a poem or prose passage on the
  wiki.
• Students create hyperlinks within the text to
  pages which give more information about a
  particular word or phrase.
• Definitions, translations, grammatical
  explanations, idiom use, etc.
• Individually or in groups

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Exegesis
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Online Discussion

• My class - Previous years used bulletin board
  format (Turnitin.com)

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Online Discussion
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What does this mean for you?

• Become aware of wikis
• Contribute to a wiki (Wikibooks, Wikitravel,
  Wikipedia.)
• Creating a class wiki intermediate level
  computer user
• See me if you are interested!