Micro-WikiPedia: Wiki Lesson Plan Learner Group: Any
Group Size: Any
Tool: A Wiki
Timeframe: 2 weeks - 10 years+
Focus: Sharing resources, collaborating
Introduction
Based on the rather marvelous Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page this lesson plan is especially useful if you teach a similar course each year / semester. However, if you have a nice institution then this could be used across courses to pretty good effect!
Basically it involves collaboratively building a knowledge resource for a particular subject area. Your learners build it together, recognizing the value of sharing (i.e. they suddenly have access to plenty more resources - suggested by their peers! - than they ever had before) and building on / adding to resources developed by previous cohorts.
Steps
1. First up you need to have a wiki tool, there are plenty out there, you could try http://www.seedwiki.com/ or http://www.bloki.com/ for free.
2. Secondly you need to get your learners familiar with Wikis (see forthcoming plan, 'Getting learners familiar with wikis'). A quick way of doing this is to get them to build a class list identifying similarities between themselves and other learners (hence building your class dynamics).
3. Now take your learners to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and get them to critically review some sections... what's useful, what's not, what do they think of the concept etc.
4. Now set them the task of building a micro-wikipedia for the subject they're studying (or building on a past one). They can use the structure in wikipedia or you can kick it off with a template for them to work from. If there's already one there then that should dictate things nicely (although never rule out complete makeovers or dramatic changes)
[If someone has some of these going could they drop a comment so people can use these as models]
5. A simple assessment piece is to tell learners that as a hurdle task they need to reflect on the value (or otherwise) of their experience contributing to and using the Wiki.
Extras & Tips:
-Again, soft security is important (keeping a daily backed-up copy so someone doesn't accidentally delete the whole shebang)
-The degree to which you might moderate this is an important question, personally, I'd encourage encourage encourage people to go there (to the extent of posting my resources there) but wouldn't interfere with how it goes. But that's me... I'm slack ;o)
3:39:08 PM 
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