Excerpts from a blog post by Patrick Ledesma on November 8, 2010 at edweek.org
What’s a Wiki?
A wiki is a website of one or more pages that allows people to add and edit content. The most famous wiki is Wikipedia, that online encyclopedia that anyone can add and edit content. While the issue of using Wikipedia for research may be controversial, my focus here is creating your own wikis so students can generate their own content for classroom purposes.
If your district doesn't provide a place to create wikis, lots of educators create wikis on websites such as PBWorks and Wikispaces.
Wikis are a powerful instructional tool for students to develop and practice vocabulary. Why? When I learned about wikis a few years ago, as a school based technology specialist, I needed to find a way to highlight the instructional value of using wikis so I could convince other teachers to try this new technology.
What if the students collaboratively developed a class wiki for their content vocabulary?
How it works.
Assign each student a word or group of words to research. After they have completed their research, they create a page for each word in the class wiki. When students are finished, the class will have their own wiki showing their classroom vocabulary. It's like a "mini Wikipedia" of content vocabulary for your class that can grow throughout the year!
Students can use the following strategies, in combination with creating wikis to maximize their vocabulary skills:
- Have students research and write a selected word in a way that is understandable to their friends.
- Assign students to draw or illustrate a vocabulary word.
- Place students in groups to brainstorm and discuss the meaning of a word.
To learn more about the specifics of Marzano’s vocabulary strategies, follow this link>
To discover the root problem of why vocabulary is difficult for students and how you can provide this simple teaching tool, see this report>