Wikis in Education

The main topic of this week's lesson was wikis. Before I started taking ed tech classes, I was strongly against the use of wikis in the classroom. However, after doing some research and actually using them, it became apparent that they could be valuable tools for students. In my opinion, as long as students understand that wikis should be used to lead them in the correct direction when doing research (as opposed to being their primary source), it is acceptable to use them. This should be common sense. It goes back to the traditional aspects of research in school. It has never been appropriate for students to use any type of encyclopedia as their main resource. When I was growing up, I recall that I was only allowed to use them to get an idea of the general background of a topic. Any true research that would be used in a paper, project, or other assignment had to come from an actual book or scholarly journal article. The same should apply if we view wikis such as wikipedia as encyclopedias (with the added task of re-checking content for accuracy). It is apparent that these types of websites are here to stay, so it makes sense to embrace the technology.