WIKI & LANGUAGE LEARNING

Wiki- is a website where users can edit or add content onto a web page. Wikis fall under the group of Web 2.0 technologies which are thought to contribute to collaboration by promoting interaction with online content. Many publicly available wikis, such as Wikiversity, allow for self-education. Wikis are sometimes used in classrooms for collaborative projects. Some teachers have found, that learners prefer to add their own content rather than rewrite others' work. 

Because a wiki functions in many ways like a web site, it can be used as a class home page or a space to organize information and links. In this case, the advantage of a wiki over a traditional web site is its ease of use and the fact that it can be edited quickly, with no need to upload files. The only disadvantage to using a wiki as a replacement for a traditional web site is that the formatting options are more limited.

STUDENT'S PROFILES

In a wiki site, students are free to create pages about themselves. A teacher can ask students to create such pages as an entry-level task to get them familiar with wiki and its tools. A student's page can contain a photo, bio information, hobbies, a list of interests, links to favorite websites. A task to create such a page gives the student an incentive how to use formatting, publishing and multimedia capabilities of a wiki platform, thereby preparing the student for more complex tasks.

Learn more about student profiles:
Examples of student profiles at Princeton and Berkley.
UBC’s student profiles is a live example of student profiling in a legacy wiki engine (Media Wiki) within a real course. Also contains a template to be filled by new students.

FREE WIKI TOOLS

Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project that supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from Wikipedia in that it offers tutorials and other materials for the fostering of learning, rather than an encyclopedia; like Wikipedia it is available in many languages.

• Wikispaces proves to be one of the best, highly reliable, easy to use and intuitive free wiki platforms to use as your wiki platform. With at least 100 MB of file storage space, it can prove sufficient for most academic needs of a small group. Recent classroom-oriented updates makes Wikispates your top choice for classroom wiki use.
• Wikia offers a more modern look, has more features and a vast fan base for attracting commercially active communities — Twilight fans, healthy food fans and alike. Less suitable for educational use for incessant advertising on every page of your wiki.
• ZohoWiki provides state-of-the-art interface and functions for a modern corporate-inclined wiki. Best for tech-savvy classrooms.
• Wiki Site is a native WikiMedia-based free wiki hosting with limited features and resources.
• WikiDot offers free plans for wiki sites with advertising. Standard wiki functionality.