Help:Educators Guide

This guide outlines how educators could use this Physiopedia wiki as an innovative pedagogy in their course.

What is a wiki

The term Wiki is hawaiian for quick and was coined as a name for a particular type of web site. These web sites allow any visitor to easily contribute to and edit that web site using nothing more than their Internet browser (e.g. Internet Explorer). Wiki systems are particularly suited to collaborative group authoring of documents and websites. The most famous example of a Wiki is Wikipedia, a very extensive on-line encylopedia that allows anyone to add to and edit its entries.

Wikis in teaching and learning

The nature of wikis means they offer a number benefits relating to learning and teaching applications:

• Wikis are extremely flexible allowing any site structure to be created.
• Wiki functionality makes them ideal for collaborative writing applications.
• Enables web publishing without knowledge of HTML or use of special web development tools.
• Enables the development of a document to be explored revealing who contributed what and when (ideal for assessing group work!).
  

Physiopedia in teaching and learning

As a wiki, Physiopedia offers educators an opportunity to involve their students in the creation of this global resource as part of an educational program.  It is anticipated that educators will engage their students to contribute to Physiopedia as part of their learning and/or revision process.  Using Physiopedia will result in both advancing the student's knowledge and add useful content to this global physiotherapy resource. The students will be dealing with a real world situation, which is not only more educational but is also more interesting and gives them more purpose for completing the task, probably resulting in increased dedication as their effort might remain online for reference.

Wiki applications in teaching and learning

• Group assignments - page revision history allows the tutor to monitor contributions and observe development of the assignment and individual contributions. This can be done throughout the writing process so issues can be spotted and feedback given before the submission of the assignment (e.g. a non-participating student can be contacted, a lack references to evidence addressed, an error in direction corrected). 
  
• Group debates - these can be held in the dedicated 'Talk' pages related to each page in the wiki.  These 'Talk' pages are accessed by clicking on the 'Discussion' tab from the page that you want to discuss.  Opposing positions can be argued and evidence presented.
  
• Peer review of assignments during their creation - students assigned to guide other students during the process of creating their individual assignments. Marks can then be assigned for the contributions they make to their peers, recorded within the assignment wiki page revision history.
• Individual portfolios - these can be created from an individuals profile page.  The flexible nature of wiki's allows an individual to be very creative in their personal portfolio creation and also allows very flexible portfolio mentoring.

Application examples

• Subject glossary - individuals/groups of students assigned responsibility for creating definitions for identified terms to build an extending subject glossary overtime. Wiki functionality means this glossary can be subject to continual peer review.
  

Resources

Leeds University have developed an extensive site about using wikis in teaching and learning.