Reflections on wikis

I have some mixed feeling about using wikis in an ESL classroom. Some of my main concerns revolve around the fact that wikis are collaborative and like any collaborative project, it's possible that students won't pull their own weight. While it's possible to monitor who has contributed what to the project, that doesn't necessarily mean that some student might not at least feel that they won't be monitored. Admittedly, the teacher could explain how they might monitor the wiki and this could help mitigate this concern, but it might be difficult to totally dissuade a student from pulling his/her own weight. Another concern would also be related to Klunder's article in that students may not enjoy working with wikis and/or feel like they are helpful or useful at all (though clearly that study's results were skewed by the fact that many of them had never used them). Finally, students can add inappropriate material or (more likely) they can add incorrect material and so there needs to be time-intensive monitoring of the wiki to ensure that the information contained within it is not crude or incorrect.

I do like the idea of using wikis for distance learning because it could be a way for students to work together at a distance. There's the possibility that it could be a time-saver for the students and a way from students to learn from each other about a given topic and create meaning together. Additionally, wikis could be used by teachers as a way to collaborate on a teaching idea or just in sharing information.