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When building a classroom community and investing time in cooperative learning, it is sometimes difficult to also incorporate technology. Even when we do find ways to use technology, it’s often difficult to know the most effective strategies without some trial and error, which can be rather time-consuming.

Well, this week’s set of links provide insight in how you can best use wikis as an online collaborative tools with your students. Wikis are the originators of the collaborative online documents and are still vital to the world of Web 2.0. However, it isn’t always clear how they can best be used in a classroom.

• Educational Wikis gives us a large list of example wikis being used by teachers and students.
• The Technology Teacher blog has a post detailing “Ten Best Practices for Using Wikis in Technology.” Although the post is a few years old and mostly written for higher education, the points made are good guidelines for managing your own classroom wiki.
• SmartTeaching.org has a list of “50 Ways to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom.”
• Of course, there’s always the “18 Interesting Ways to Use Wikis in Your Classroom” from the incomparable Tom Barrett.
• Here’s a wiki list of best practices and examples of wikis used in education.
• It’s always a good day when you find a SlideShare presentation on your desired topic. Here’s one on wikis in education.
• Finally, here’s a post from the Cool Cat Teacher Blog on “Wiki Wiki Teaching.”

What are some ways you have used wikis with your students? What are some best practices to keep in mind when using wikis? How has a wiki enhanced the learning in your classroom?

Zac Early is an instructional specialist with the eMINTS National Center.