Ed_wikis

Educational value of wikis
Having the opportunity to use wiki's within the school environment has helped me start to understand that wikis have an educational value for
 * making publicly accredited statements to a non-school audience
 * collaborative work [a 21st C skill] that not only brings group members together but also can grow through recognised value
 * making digital artifacts of real world value beyond the classroom
 * engendering feedback and meta-cognitive reflection

Abstract from paper submitted for 2008 Australian Computers in Education Conference =Wikis: Taking Learning To The World = //This paper reports on two student centered wiki-based projects where students from an Australian school have joined with others from around the world to develop digital skills in communication, construction and shared thinking relevant to the digital age. The Horizon Project (http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com) involved schools from the United States, Bangladesh, Austria and China. Students considered, synthesised and created multimedia artifacts in response to the 2007 Horizon Project (see [|http://www.nmc.org]). This project identified six digital trends applicable to current and future considerations. The Flat Classroom Project (see http://flatclassroomproject.wikispaces.com) involved students from the United States, Qatar, China and Austria. The students built on previous work, responding to ideas put forward by Thomas Friedman in his book **The World is Flat**. Joint videos were created as students shared ideas and added to the wiki knowledge. In both projects, students used Web 2 software to communicate. Through an examination of these two projects the potential of wikis to support learning, issues that need to be considered, and advice on how to get started, will be provided. //