LCLC examples of wikis implemented in introductory, intermediate, and advanced language courses. Examples also provided for non-language&culture contexts.

1. Susanne Rott, Charity Anne Caldwell,
Michiko Kato, Adam Gacs, Caitlin Cornell

2. Sure, there’s writing. Reading. Editing. But…

3. • Yes.
Of course you have…
Show of
hands/tweets/etc.:
Who here has ever edited
Wikipedia or another
wiki?

4. a collection of Web Examples presented here include:
pages designed to enable
• Intermediate (4th semester)
anyone with access to language courses
contribute or modify – Japanese 104
– German 104
content, using a
simplified markup language. • Advanced language courses
(it’s easy to do) – French 334, Jr/Sr level
Advanced Grammar
Wikis are often used to create • Culture courses conducted in
collaborative websites and to English
power community websites. – Russian 116, Soviet Culture
source: wikipedia.org

5. Language-learning contexts Other contexts
• Literature? • Politics? History?
– Exploration of – In-depth analysis of a socio-
literature/authors/genres/ political situation – nowadays
works read in your course? In or set in the past.
the program?
• Culture? • Something else …
– Of a single country? – A mock website for an
– A mock newspaper? From US organization?
or abroad? • Advanced science courses?
• Language? – Large projects with extensive
– Global role of the target lab reports
language?
• Any course where students
– Analysis of dialects in different
countries? read and present articles!

7. • Writing for a real • Ability to incorporate
audience, not just the authentic listening/media
instructor – Embedding videos first
– How “real” varies wiki to wiki: requires a great deal of
• just peers in the same class? listening and even reading
• The whole department? native-speaker content on
• The whole world (a la websites
wikipedia)?
Integrating research and
• Incorporation of authentic culture – on any language
sources level
– Target-language websites
– Print sources as well, if
necessary

8. Original text by students in a near-final version of wiki.
There are two external links in the section shown, one to a target-
language website and the other to a video about one of the cultures of
Algeria.
What is shown above was created by one student and edited by two
more students for content, organization, and (last of all) grammar.

9. • Multiple drafts over time
• Peer editing/proofing
– Learn to be critical writers
– Learn to evaluate/revise own work through practicing on
others’
• Progress is graded throughout
(not just final version!)
• Focus on content first, then grammatical form
• Introduction of new writing genre: the wiki!
– Concise summaries
– Integrated referencing
– Integrated media and hyperlinks

10. Multiple students edited this page.
The “View Diff” button on the left brings up the version for that
date, with that student’s changes highlighted.

11. Before students start anything…

12. Go ahead, create lots of interesting, relevant content using your best
target-language writing skills!
(Hint: this is not the way to structure or introduce your wiki!)

13. • What is the wiki about?
Show of hands/tweets/etc.:
Suggestions? Ideas for your specific course?
• What will its role be in your course?
– Semester-long group project?
– Individual research projects (long or short)?
– Presentations of weekly news articles for comment?
• What will your students be graded on?
– Grammar should not be the focus of evaluation.
• Writing as a process!
– Evaluation of content
– Evaluation of “wikiness” of final version of pages:

14. • Encourage writing Encourage multimedia
– Minimum word count content
• Per person? – Minimum number
• Per group? • Images (2)
• Videos (1)
• Build vocabulary, etc. • Audio?
– Minimum # of (hyperlinked) – Contextualized with writing!
entries to a wiki-wide
“Glossary” page Encourage references
– Minimum # of hyperlinks to
Encourage collaboration external websites
– Minimum # of hyperlinks with
other wiki pages. – List all external pages at the
bottom of a given page
– Minimum # of
edits/comments by other
students.

15. • Fr334 wiki eval criteria
are included in the
section about that wiki
specifically at the end.

16. Tips and tricks for getting the content you want
…and avoiding the tech headaches you fear.

17. 1. Incorporate wiki into During that class, go over:
syllabus. – Criteria
– Due dates
2. Create framework for
– Topology of wiki
students
– Home page, criteria. Have students do each
– Blank group pages, topic criteria in class as a trial
pages, etc. – Write text
– Make links
3. Introduce wiki in class
– Embed all types of media
– Students need hands-on
time to explore the wiki.

18. Glossary
HOME
Group 1 Group 4
page page
Group 2 Group 3
page page
Student 10 Student 11
Student 1 Student 2 page page
page page
Student 12
Student 3 page
Student 4 Student 7 Student 8
page Student 5
page page page
page
Student 9
Student 6
page
page
Students receive two grades:
Glossary/collocation page can be
• Individual page work
added to any wiki configuration.
• Collective group-page grade

19. Students receive two grades:
•Individual page work
•Collective group-page grade
Instructor has included intra-wiki hyperlinks, images, and text of the sort
she would like her students to create. The homepage is a model for what
your students ought to produce.

20. 4. Schedule at least one 5. Wiki-draft day
more day in a computer – Several days before first
lab graded deadline
– Students with difficulty or – Provide criteria for what
procrastinators get a 2nd you expect to see by this
guided tour point
– Groups have some – Look to see if they are on
collaboration time the right track
6. Talk to class about
general observations
– Do not comment harshly
about specific pages.

21. 4th semester Japanese. Last semester of basic language program.

22. Instructor used English and some Japanese to encourage students to use
Japanese where they can.
Requirements and deadlines are listed further down on the
homepage, along with group assignments.

23. • Class divided into 8 groups, 3-4 students each.
• Each group has a collective page.
• Guidelines for group pages include:
– Length: 200 words per group member.
– Multimedia: At least 1 video or audio clip embedded by EACH
member.
– Links: both intra-wiki and external links are required.
• Students may decide to create their own pages in
addition to the group page. (not required)

24. Pink strikethrough text shows student deletions from this page on a
specific date, by a specific student. See these examples for the list of all
revisions and this example to see the parts showing who edited a
revision.

25. This page was created by one of a few students who is fairly fluent in
Japanese. The embedded video shows how to make a specific dish, and
there is a link to a restaurant that serves this food.
This example shows how students can use a wiki to the fullest extent of
their abilities - and classmates an be required to link to, edit, or comment
on pages. This provides yet more input to the class as a whole.

26. 4th semester German. Last semester of basic language program.

27. • Wiki is the final culture-focused project. Serves as a basis
for an oral class presentation (8 minutes)
• Students choose their German culture topic they are
interested in. Learn to write and talk about a cultural
topic of their interest.
• Collaborative research: learning about German online
resources
• Collaborative writing of multiple “drafts”: peer and
teacher feedback

28. This course had students create
individual wikis as the basis for their
oral presentations.
Students taking German language
courses have different majors and vary
in their motivation for taking German.
Some of them find it simply like
German music.
Allowing students to work on different
topics of interest provides student
centered learning materials.
In future implementations, we
recommend that this course create
one large wiki with general subpages
on cultural topics.
The individual groups can pick the
specific subtopic of interest, for
instance Deutsch-Metal, and link it to

29. Students are asked to submit an
abstract to their teacher to make sure
that they will the language skills to
work on the project.
Since the project will finally be
presented as an oral presentation to
the entire class the content needs to
be comprehensible for all classmates.
One component of the proposal is
identifying German keywords.

30. • Week 5: subtopics with preliminary content outline in German
• Week 6: partner feedback on content –in different font color
• Week 7: instructor feedback on content
• Week 9: instructor checks revisions
• Week 11: instructor feedback on content and grammar
• Week 13: final version of wiki is due
• Week 15: final oral presentation of wiki

32. Jr/Sr required French course: Oral and Written French, with a strong
grammar component

33. Thoroughly incorporated to • Wiki used as main writing
syllabus and every aspect of project
course. – 20 % of overall grade.
– Replaced two essays.
• Week 1: pre-wiki individual
essay.
• Oral discussions relate to wiki
• Week 3: Introduction to wiki content.
and hands-on tech time.
• Both other paper also relates
• Week 4: initial “pre-deadline” to wiki content.
review and follow-up tech
time. • Wiki found to be excellent tool
to help students relate
• 2-week page rotations for “grammar” lessons to actual
duration of term. writing and content.

34. 4 francophone countries, 4 aspects Groups move together.
for each country:
• Each student works on one wiki
• Literature page at a time for two weeks
• History – Week 1: edit previous work on that
page
• Geography – Week 2: add new content to that
• Music same page
(16 pages in total)
After two weeks:
Students do not create new pages. • Group is assigned a new country
• Students move to new topics
within the new country.
– Again, proofread 1st week
– Develop content 2nd week

35. grade
grade
2nd …….………………..
1st ………………………
grade

36. Evaluation of rotating wiki Grade has 4 sub-points
• After each 2-wk cycle, each o On-time-ness
• Wiki submission not completed
student receives a grade for at the last second
that period (5 grades for the
o Number and quality of
term) external references (links)
• Intra-wiki linking not required. o Style of page
• Media content must be
contextualized. Page must be
• Extra-wiki linking is vital organized.
o Grammar
• Grading found to take
o New culture-oriented
equivalent time to evaluation vocabulary
of the two dropped essays. o This point dropped from rubric

37. Instructor created homepage, main country pages, and 4 category pages
for each country.
On the homepage, she included a video for each country.
There are also intra-wiki and external hyperlinks within the text written
by the instructor.

38. These specific changes
shown below were made
when? And by whom? Use these arrows to click
through time and see the
page evolving.
This is the start page provided for each subtopic of each country. Note how
the deadlines and basic expectations for a given topic are
enumerated, even though they appear on the syllabus and were discussed
in several class sessions.
This is also an example of viewing the history of a page in the wiki. The
versions are all listed as shown on this slide, and an instructor can also
click through using the “Diff” arrows on the top right.

39. Here is a recent version of the same page. It has a map as requested and
addresses some other issues particular to Haiti, for instance the video
with audio examples of Haitian Creole. At the bottom of this page, as
with all pages, students hyperlinked the websites they used as references
in the creation of this page, besides hyperlinking to specific content
within the body of their text.

40. This is a composite of some parts of the La Cuisine Algérienne page
showing rich multimedia components available in a wiki project. The
video shows the process of making couscous.
Students from the course have since gone to the cafe shown and
reported conversing in French with people in it.
Note also the References linked at the bottom.

41. Plagarism Valid references
In the examples shown • Provide guidelines as to how
here, instructors spot-checked much referencing is expected.
suspicious text. In the Japanese and
French wikis, all student work was – Once a paragraph?
legitimate. – Each sentence?
– At least 8 external references
A more systematic way, for Blackboard per wiki page?
or non-Bb wikis could be:
• Provide guidelines as to what
• Grade students throughout the sorts of pages are legitimate.
term normally.
– Must be in target language?
• At the final deadline, students – Must be “appropriate”
copy&paste their final pages into a – Must be relevant
Word document. • Explicitly ban pages that
• They must submit that document students should not use /
to SafeAssign within Blackboard. cannot count as references:
• This would be an additional – Wikipedia
requirement of the wiki project. No – Personal blogs?
SafeAssign = fail project. – US gov’t pages?

42. • Students in the advanced French course are so proud
of their work, they have asked the professor to make it
publicly available (outside of Blackboard)
– Bb wiki allows “Export site” which downloads a zip file of
all pages, embedded images, links, etc.
– This can easily be uploaded to a webspace, and all links
work, videos still play, etc.
• The final version is linked from here:
– http://lclc.uic.edu/teachers/documentation.shtml

43. • Wikis are a great way to inspire students to think
creatively about their second language writing
skills
• Want to use a wiki? Don’t forget to:
– Decide how, why, and where a wiki will best serve
your course
– Make a clear framework for you and your students
– Craft your criteria for grading carefully

44. Connect with us elsewhere in the tubes:

45. Susanne Rott, Charity Anne Caldwell,
Michiko Kato, Adam Gacs, Caitlin Cornell