Chapter 10. Wikis

This chapter covers the following MTC skills: 5.8 Wiki

A wiki is a collection of collaboratively authored web pages. A wiki starts with one front page. Students can edit the page or add more pages to the wiki by creating links to new pages that don’t yet exist. Old versions of each page can be viewed by checking the page history.

Moodle’s wiki is built on top of an older wiki system, called ErfurtWiki (http://erfurtwiki.sourceforge.net/).

In Moodle, wikis can be a powerful tool for collaborative work. The entire class can edit a document together, or you can create group wikis which are only editable by group members.

Creating Wikis

Creating a wiki is relatively simple and involves far fewer steps than the lesson module. Most of the work involved with creating wikis becomes easier once you start using them.

To create a wiki:

  1. Click the “Turn editing on” button.

  2. Select Wiki from the “Add an activity” drop-down menu in the course section where you would like to add the wiki.

  3. On the “Adding a new wiki” page, as shown in Figure 10-1, give the wiki a descriptive name.

  4. In the summary field, describe the purpose of the wiki and what you expect students to contribute.

  5. Select the wiki type: groups, student, or teacher. The wiki type interacts with the groups setting for your course, resulting in nine options, as shown in Table 10-1.

    Table 10-1. Wiki group permissions

     

    No groups

    Separate groups

    Visible groups

    Teacher

    Creates a single wiki that only the teacher can edit. Students can view the wiki but not make changes.

    Each group has a wiki that only the teacher can edit. Other groups can’t view the page.

    Each group has a wiki that only the teacher can edit. Other groups can view the page.

    Groups

    There is one wiki for the class. All students can edit the wiki.

    There is one wiki per group. Students in that group can edit the wiki. Other students can’t view the page.

    There is one wiki per group that group members can edit. Other groups can view the page.

    Student

    Each student has their own wiki that only the teacher and student can edit.

    Each student has their own wiki that they can edit. Students in the same group can view the page as well.

    Each student has their own wiki that they can edit. All the other students in the course can view the page as well.

  6. Click the Show Advanced button to display the following additional options:

    Print wiki name on every page

    If you select this option, the top of each page will have the name of the wiki.

    HTML Mode

    There are three options: No HTML, safe HTML, or HTML only. No HTML will display all HTML tags as tags (for example, a bold tag will look like a <b> instead of making the word bold). Safe HTML will allow certain tags to be displayed. HTML only enables the HTML editor.

    Allow binary files

    Binary files are graphics, audio, video, and other nontext resources. If you want students to be able to add files as attachments, be sure to set this to Yes.

    Wiki autolinking options

    A new page can be created in the wiki by typing a word using CamelCase, i.e., with a capital letter at the beginning and a capital letter somewhere else in the word. It’s called CamelCase because the two capital letters resemble a two-humped camel. CamelCase combines all the words for the link into one word. Each word in the link is capitalized. When a word is added in CamelCase, the wiki automatically creates a new page and makes the word a link. You can disable this feature if you wish, so that typing a word enclosed in square brackets is the only way of creating a new web page.

    Student admin options

    When students can edit a page, you can allow them certain administrative privileges in the wiki. We’ll cover each of these options in more detail in the “Managing Wikis” section later in this chapter.

    Page name

    If you want the first page of the wiki to be different from the name of the wiki, then add a page name. Otherwise, leave the field empty.

  7. Select the common module options:

    Group mode

    This is another location in which to set the group mode for the activity. If group mode is forced in the course settings, then this setting will be ignored.

    Visible

    This determines whether students may view the activity or not.

  8. Click the “Save changes” button. You will then be taken to the editing view of the wiki page you just created.

Adding a new wiki

Figure 10-1. Adding a new wiki

Once your wiki is up and running, you and your students can begin collaborating on creating content.