What are wikis?

Wikis are a collaborative writing space on the Internet. They can be public or private. Each wiki is generally created on a specific topic. The information available to users grows with the contributions from the wiki users.

People from widely spread out geographical areas can each contribute to the development of the material in the wiki. The most popular wiki is Wikipedia.

Users of a wiki can add their contribution or rewrite the current information by clicking on the Edit button.

Wikis

How are wikis used?

When a wiki is set up and the writers are ready to start, they will find that what they see is almost the same as looking at a blank word processing page. There is a window to type in, buttons to format text and a spell checker. However, where a word processing document scrolls down the screen through the many pages, in a wiki you create links to other pages like a web site.

student from Cooma Public School There are many quick and easy ways that have been created to insert video clips, audio files, photos, animations etc. Very quickly a group of people can collaborate on creating an interactive web site.

Each wiki can be private (only for the collaborators) or public. At the end of the collaboration a private wiki can be altered to become a public one. In this way the creators can share the content.

Who uses wikis?

Why use wikis?

Mini Podcast: Heather Johnson retired principal of Peakhurst High School, recorded in May 2009.