8/14/2019 Wiki Travel and Other Wikis - Students as Authors
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Wikitravel and other wikis - students as authors
I intended to write this blog as a follow up to the one on
students writing for Wikipedia and Ichecked back to see when it was
written almost exactly a year ago. Since then quite a fewarticles
have been written by our students for Wikipedia. And now we are
looking at other wikisites, such as Wikitravel
Language learners often travel and so they have plenty of travel
experiences to write about. Eventhose students who arent travelling
much can write about where they live or another place theyknow
well.
There are a few challenges with this approach to writing
Quality: ensuring that the quality is high wikis are public
resources and so the studentsinput should be clear and of a good
level.
Accuracy: there is also the question of accuracy of information
although this is easilychecked according to sources that are
referenced by the student
Speed: students also sometimes need to write quickly a few
months back I suggested astudent write about Obama only to find
that a lot of information was added to Wikipedia(Simple English
version) a couple of days later.
An advantage of Wikitravel (compared to Wikipedia) is that there
are often opportunities to addcontent even in English. Although
some locations such as Bangkok have a great deal of detail,others
such as Esteli have very little text. True that Esteli is a little
off the beaten track but even
visitors to major destinations can add a paragraph or two about
something specific. And of course, this is very much in the spirit
of wikis that everyone writes a little about what they
knowabout.
Interestingly, if the student is learning Spanish, then there
are many more opportunities to writefor Wikitravel. As of today,
the entry for Toronto in Spanish is looking a little on the thin
side
Toronto es una de las ciudades mas grandes y pobladas de Canad,
se distingue por la CN Tower que esta ubicada a un costado del
estadio de los azulejos (el unico estadio en el mundo
http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/wikitravel/http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/simple-english-wikipedia-in-language-lessons/http://www.wikitravel.org/http://wikitravel.org/en/Bangkokhttp://wikitravel.org/en/Bangkokhttp://wikitravel.org/en/Bangkokhttp://wikitravel.org/en/Estelihttp://wikitravel.org/en/Estelihttp://wikitravel.org/es/Torontohttp://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/wikitravel/http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/simple-english-wikipedia-in-language-lessons/http://www.wikitravel.org/http://wikitravel.org/en/Bangkokhttp://wikitravel.org/en/Estelihttp://wikitravel.org/es/Torontohttp://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/wikitravel/
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con un domo removible). Esta ciudad moderna y multicultural
ofrece una gran cantidad deatracciones para sus visitantes.
There are, of course, other wiki websites for students to write
for
Recipes ( http://www.recipeswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page ) Music (
http://www.wikimusicguide.com/ ) Star Wars (
http://swfanon.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page ) And many more
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Big_wikis
Wikis are much more than mulitlingual resources for language
classes - they can become acollaborative and easy way for students
to publish their written work and gain a genuine sense of
accomplishment.
Some related links
Dogme 2.0: What Teaching 2.0 Can Learn from Dogme ELT Are
Textbooks Still Relevant in a Web 2.0 World? Simple English
Wikipedia in Language Lessons Google Maps Street View for Language
Learning
http://www.recipeswiki.org/wiki/Main_Pagehttp://www.wikimusicguide.com/http://swfanon.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Pagehttp://www.wikia.com/wiki/Big_wikishttp://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/145793583.htmlhttp://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/145793583.htmlhttp://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/dogme-elt-web20-dogme20/http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/textbooks-relevant-20-world/http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/simple-english-wikipedia-in-language-lessons/http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/google-street-view-languages/http://www.recipeswiki.org/wiki/Main_Pagehttp://www.wikimusicguide.com/http://swfanon.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Pagehttp://www.wikia.com/wiki/Big_wikishttp://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/145793583.htmlhttp://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/dogme-elt-web20-dogme20/http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/textbooks-relevant-20-world/http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/simple-english-wikipedia-in-language-lessons/http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/google-street-view-languages/
