Week 10: Using wikis for writing Skill.

This week I have the opportunity to read the article “Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis”.

The first article is “Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis”. A wiki is a website where anyone can edit anything anytime they want (Richardson, 2006). Wiki is a great tool for online collaborative writing activities. This article was trying to find out how applicable wikis are with ESL learners; a group of students were chosen to work with wikis. It say that at the beginning the result of using this source was not the good, the result were slow and that happen maybe because the tool was new for them. Then students were only adding their ideas to their group page. Well at the end of the process students were motivated and excited about the writing project throughout, because of the following reasons:

·         The wiki was a new medium for them to express their ideas in writing.

·         It was easy for them to learn and work with wikis.

·         Their group report would be read by other groups; there was a real audience for their writing.

·         They enjoyed the process of sharing ideas.

·         They enjoyed the online contact with each other outside of class. The writing project led to a visible product on the Web: the completed wiki.

In conclusion, know we already know that Wikis have a great potential in promoting collaborative writing by learners outside of class. This tool is very helpful for teachers and also, for students. Using wiki, teachers the opportunity to practice and develop the writing skill with students. This tool is very useful because students or even teacher have the opportunity to use it because it has a large range of formatting features were they can practice to improve the writing skill.