Using the Moodle Wiki Activity as a Collaborative Language Learning Exercise
Overview
Rosa Nazzaro creates a wide range of customisable Moodle subpages using the Moodle Wiki activity to achieve different aims in her language learning classes. One type of Moodle Wiki page she creates is the student's personal page, which a student may use to reflect on their learning progress and where they may write down the new words they have learnt as part of the module. Another type of Wiki page can be set up as a space where students can complete collaborative exercises on a given topic. The Wiki pages are equipped with many features, allowing students to embed different content into them, as well as revisit and re-edit them at later times.
The main purpose of this use of Moodle Wiki pages (which are usually ungraded) is to foster collaboration by allowing students to interact with each others' writing and learn from each other. This, in turn, helps to combat the level of isolation a student can feel when studying in an asynchronous environment or via distance learning.
Contributor
Rosa Nazzaro, SMLC
Lesson plan
- The tutor sets up the relevant Wiki pages using the Moodle Wiki activity and structures them according to their aims. In her courses, Rosa Nazzaro introduces the aims of her Wiki pages as a heading of the page, where she outlines their purpose.
- For individual/personal assignments or journals, the tutor sets up a page for each individual student and grants them access to this Wiki page, which they are required to fill in with information and (optionally) images, videos, and audio files every week using the new words they had learnt in that week's class. They are free to return to this Wiki page and edit it at any point of the course, and they will receive timely feedback on it from the module leader.
- The tutor may also set up collaborative exercises for groups of students by creating dedicated Moodle Wiki pages that the students have to fill in together to complete a certain language learning assignment. For instance, Rosa Nazzaro frequently separates her classes into groups who have to discuss, in written form and in a foreign language, an image that she had posted on a dedicated Wiki page.
Tutor's observations
The reason why I started [working] with Wiki is because [it] is quite easy to use and students at the Language Centre come from different backgrounds, because I have students, people from staff, and people from the public. So, the age is heterogenous, and [so is] the interest, motivation...
Wiki is user-friendly... and I also wanted to give the opportunity to some students who are more reticent to speak in a face-to-face lesson to have the opportunity to be in an asynchronous environment where they could practice the language without the pressure of a face-to-face lesson. So, Wiki was the opportunity to extend and complement the face-to-face session.
The main aims were to foster collaboration online and also to enhance the awareness of knowledge construction during the course. So, at the end of the course, they could see on the Wiki page, or in the shared Wiki pages how much they had learned. It was, in a way, important to them.
At the end of the course, I administered a student questionnaire, and the students' feedback was quite good, because they recognised the value of having used Wiki in their language course and they were keen to re-use it in the following courses.
Examples of contributor's teaching materials
Links to more like this
Categories: Active learning, Authentic assessment, Co-designing, Distance learning, Knowledge management, Learning through explaining, Peer learning, Reflective practice, Real-world challenges, Reusable learning content, Student as Producer, Supporting and encouraging team work
Tools: Moodle Wiki, Moodle Forum, Moodle Module Space
Departments: SMLC