I have just started going through the section of the course that's looking at Wikis as an on-line communication tool. I chose that because I wanted to learn more about something I was very little familiar with. The section on creating online quizzes and other kinds of assessment also attracted me and it is something I would like to find more about.

I have to say that I was extremely impressed with the way Wikis work and their potential for creating virtual collaborative environments. I had no idea Wikipedia works like that and I felt the first part of the tutorial on Wikis was very imformative. I also have to say though that my trust on Wikipedia as an encyclopaedian resource dropped dramatically.... Reliability is obviously a very important issue with this kind of on-line tools!

However I believe that Wikis can be used for educational purposes very creatively and can stimulate student motivation through the creation of an on-line virtual community. They can encourage a different kind of communication which although asynchronous can still be more inclusive than for example Pebble Pad or the use of blogs.

However they can be difficult to follow especially in the case of big Wikis such as Wikipedia where the participant needs to follow very specific rules. I have to say I was extremely confused with how Wikipedia works. Of course it all depends on the style and purpose of the Wiki as the Wiki we engaged with as part of this course was very easy to follow.