1. The Role of Wiki in ELT... by Rajasekaran

Introduction

Developing English Language skill is the prime agenda of any tertiary level students. Computers and language teaching have walked hand to hand for a long time and contributed as teaching tools in the language and second language classroom. Computers and technology are still a source of fears and insecurity for many teachers everywhere in the world despite the latest advances applicable to language teaching such as specialized websites, blogs, wikis, language teaching methodology, journals, and so. Although many countries have done institutional efforts to modernize their equipment, spent large amounts in technology, proved the positive effects of integrating computers in language learning (Tsou, Wang & Tzeng, 2006) and so, many teachers still miss the appropriate interest, strong will to learn and a challenging attitude towards teaching with computers

A recent computer-based resource to facilitate collaborative work is the wiki. According to Leuf & Cunningham (2001), the word "wiki" is derived from a Hawaiian word "wiki wiki" which means "fast, quick; to hurry, to hasten". It is used to describe something which can be both formal and informal, with a sense of being speedy. Cunningham (2001) defines the concept of the wiki as a "freely expandable collection of interlinked Web pages". A wiki is therefore a hypertext system for storing and modifying information - a database with each page being easily editable by any user through a standard Web browser.

The features of a wiki offer the potential to incorporate it into educational contexts. These key features include a user-friendly interface for editing the content, history tracking, defining the size of authoring groups, and a non-linear structure for editing. In order to investigate the role of wiki in the English language teaching, a wiki page (www.techeng.pbworks.com) was created and students were made to use the page.

Wiki

Wiki (derived from the Hawaiian wiki for 'fast') is online software for creating simple websites which supports collaborative writing, the most well-known of which is Wikipedia. While blogs tend to be written by an individual, and are therefore personal in nature, wikis are more likely to be the result of a collaborative effort. The goal of wiki sites is to become a 'shared repository of knowledge, with the knowledge base growing over time', and they are 'expected to have some degree of seriousness and permanence' (Godwin-Jones 2003). For this reason, the structure of wikis tends to be very simple, with the focus being on content and collaboration rather than design. Another major feature of wiki is that the software usually tracks any changes, so changes can generally be attributed, and previous versions can be retrieved.

In terms of pedagogical benefits, a wiki enables communication and knowledge construction beyond the classroom. Students become contributors, rather than just recipients of knowledge. As with blogging, wikis enable students to take part in distributed research communities that extend spatially and temporally beyond the classroom or class session (Mejias 2006). Students build a sense of community by collaborating on a shared goal, and they learn from observing the communal work being drafted, refined, and finalized. Accountability is increased through exposure to peers or the wider internet audience, which leads to greater care for linguistic accuracy. Additionally, as students learn to author collectively, they also learn to overcome traditional Western educational practices of promoting individual ownership (Guth 2007).

Design of the Wiki (http://techeng.pbworks.com)

The wiki website was constructed by using the free online authorware PBwiki (http://www.pbworks.com), which allows users to create their own wiki site through simple, ready-made tools. With the templates provided, users can easily create different pages such as syllabuses, group projects and classrooms. Once a template has been selected, a screen with composing tools appears. This is quite user-friendly in that the environment is similar in nature to that of a word processor such as Microsoft Word. Users can type in their content along with features such as tables; they can adjust font sizes, insert pictures and even attach files to the page. Figures below provide examples.

Observations

The wiki was created in the month of September, 2010 after several revisions it was introduced to the students for usage. At this point, each student member was responsible for their own learning. Some students turned up immediately after the announcement of the wiki page creation whereas some left it too late. At the outset, there were around 200 entries, which were made by around 100 students. Most students logged on to the wiki a few times to check the new postings, although not all contributed comments. Nonetheless, many students logged in and contributed on more than just a single occasion.

Discussion and Conclusion

After using wiki by students, informal discussions were held with them concerning their reactions to the wiki page. In general, students were positive. They mentioned that while this was the first time they had engaged in such a collaborative learning environment, they had enjoyed learning on computer rather than via pen and paper. Some of them consequently stated that they would consider how they might use wiki as a platform for developing other skills.

As many of the students were having possibility of using internet without time boundary, they felt that wikis enabled them to work during their free time - such as on public holidays or later at night as it suited them. Not everything was all smooth sailing; however, some students complained about internet usage, or rather the lack of it. As mentioned above, some students did not understand the task they had been assigned; as a result, some students were not able to start working on the page as scheduled. Further, some students did not keep to the schedule laid out for what was to be learnt each category.

In each category, students were asked to comment on a specific part and it was intended that students could improve their own language writing skill. It transpired, however, that certain students contributed very little – at which point they attempted to make up for lost time by commenting what they should have contributed earlier. This interference prevented some students’ progress substantially in writing, with the result that some students were delayed and were not able to start working on wiki as planned. A few students faced this problem, and consequently, little commenting was done, with these students work emerging as incomplete. Further, since this was the optional framed as extension work, and for which there was no penalty for not completing, some students did not take it as seriously as they might have. If the wiki concept is instituted as a core part of the course, this issue of non-completion will have to be considered. In part this also relates to the way students are taken it. In future study, student training need to be carefully arranged by the instructor with the consequence of lack of participation needing to be taken into account before the wiki starts - possibly by allocating a small percentage of marks (10%, say) to participation.