Ideas+for+Using+Wikis

Some Suggestions for How to Use Wikis to Teach History
This page outlines some suggestions about how to use Wikis to teach History and develop your students' higher order learning and collaborative learning skills. (NB: many of these idea are based on those suggested by Wikispaces) Feel free to add your own suggestions about the bottom of the list by editing this page.

** Wiki ideas appropriate for most grade levels **
**Vocabulary lists** and examples of the words in use, contributed by students (ongoing throughout the year).

 Products of research - especially **collaborative group projects**: the Australian homefront in WW2, artistic movements, the Australian electoral process, disease epidemics, convicts, etc. Remember that the products do not have to be simply writing. They can include images, web-links, videos, etc. Creating an organizational structure for the content is an important part if the project – the ‘home page’ should function as a contents page, with links to the other pages.

 **A ‘What I Think Will Be on the Test’ wiki**: a place to log review information for important concepts throughout the year, prior to taking the “high stakes” test or final exam. Students add to it throughout the year.

 **A ‘why History is relevant’ wiki**, where students can add their own posts after a situation arises in which their study of History became relevant or helpful. E.g. understanding the significance of ANZAC Day celebrations, or meeting an elderly Polish people and realising that they came to Australia as refugees after WW2 and initially did it tough when they came to Australia.

 A **travelogue** from a field trip or NON-field trip that the class would have liked to take (i.e. an imaginative field trip, based on knowledge of the time period and place) – e.g. if one travelled back in time to Ancient Greece or to Russia at the time of the 1917 Revolution.

 **Articles by students who miss school for family trips**, written about their travels on the class wiki, perhaps relating what they see to concepts learned before they left: e.g. applying their knowledge of WW2 when they visit Canberra and the Australian War Memorial etc. Remember: hotels usually have Internet access – they can post while away!

 An **FAQ** (or NSFAQ- Not So Frequently Asked Questions) wiki on your current unit topic. Have students post entries and continue adding questions that occur to them as the unit progresses. As other students add their “answers,” the wiki will evolve into a student-created guide to the topic. Example: Ancient Egypt FAQ or World War Two FAQ. You may find that the FAQ process can entirely supplant traditional classroom activities, especially if you seed a few questions as the teacher.

** Wiki ideas for History/Social Studies **
 A **role-play mock-debate between key protagonists** (e.g. Doc Evatt and Robert Menzies debating the banning of the Communist Party), in wiki form (composed entirely based on research students have done on the protagonists' positions).

 A **collaborative project with students in another location** or all over the world: A day in the life of an American/Japanese/French/Brazilian/Mexican family. (This one would require finding contacts in other locations, of course).

 A collection of propaganda posters and ephemera produced during World War One or Two, to illustrate this theme

 Detailed and illustrated descriptions of governmental processes: how a bill becomes a law, etc.

 A **virtual tour** of your school as you study “our community” in lower grades (you can take photos of different parts of the school with a digital camera and up-load them to the Wiki for illustrative purposes).

 A local history wiki, documenting historical buildings, events, and people within your community. Include interviews with those who can tell about events from the World War II era or the day the mill burned down, etc. Allow adult community members to add their input by signing up for “membership” in the wiki. This project could continue on for years and actually be a service to the community. Perhaps the area historical society would provide some assistance, if you can get them to think beyond the closed stacks of their protected collections!

 A **travel brochure wiki**: use wikis to “advertise” tours of different literary, historical, or cultural locations and time periods: Dickens’ London, fourteenth century in Italy, Adelaide during the Depression of the 1930s, Ballarat during the 1850s Goldrush, etc. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">An **interactive story**: Like a "choose your own adventure" - students could each take turns in writing part of an account of an historical event etc. This would be a good empathy task <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Drafting**: Give each student a page where they can post their essay/assignment drafts. Encourage the class to comment and edit each other's work.