This is tricky: though the easiest response is to point to Wikipedia, its structure and aims are not readily correlated to many pertinent teaching and learning activities. When an open editing environment is described-and then qualified with reassurances that permissions, hierarchies, and rules may be nonetheless enforced-an intrigued instructor will naturally want to see a wiki in action. By treating the wiki as an undifferentiated phenomenon rather than a variously applied tool, we risk alienating colleagues who might otherwise recognize its ability to facilitate long-standing and fundamental pedagogical goals.Īfter years of describing wikis to other educators, I’ve come to recognize stages of inquiry. Without codified examples of specific uses of wikis in classrooms, instructors are liable to deem this new platform as unmanageable or just too complicated for their purposes. Wikis drive collaboration, they promote community, they spur interactivity, they spawn archives: who wouldn’t want one of these fantastic devices in the classroom? And yet, though many instructors have by now heard the term and its attendant claims, wikis can still induce bewilderment and even guilt among the uninitiated. Wikis come burdened with a slightly ridiculous name and no end of claims about their transformative potential.