The Presentation Wiki
August 12, 2008
The presentation wiki could also be called the course management wiki because, even though it doesn’t have all the capabilities of most CMS’s, it is often used by instructors for the presentation of course material to students. As such the presentation wiki has an inward focus, used primarily for the convenience of the class.
This type of wiki can offer practical experience in the use of a communication forum and support a class in accessing, organizing, and manipulating information effectively. When students contribute to the wiki the focus is on the process of assembling information. The wiki can support brainstorming, project collaboration, information literacy, resource structuring, and peer evaluation. Often students work in class to organize findings on the wiki and then present them.
The presentation wiki has often been used in composition and writing classes or in rhetoric courses where it can help students focus on the right mix of words, images, sounds, and feelings.
This type of wiki also lends itself to teacher training where it can provide instructors with a workspace in which to do exercises in course and lesson planning.
Because of the experimental nature of much of the work on the presentation wiki it may be a good idea to restrict access to members of the class.
Teaching English Language Arts
