Technologies that Promote Social Learning in Online Courses (Part 2)

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This is the second post in a series about technologies that promote social learning. The first post covered using discussion forums to encourage social learning in online courses. So to recap, what exactly is social learning? Basically, it is comprised of three situations - 

* students helping one another learn

* students inspiring and motivating each other
* students teaching each other

Research on student success in the online environment, clearly shows that students who learn socially increase their chances of success. We are the facilitators and course designers of the learning space that students find themselves in. To that end, how can we create online learning environments that encourage social learning? In this second post, I will talk about ANOTHER TECHNOLOGY for online courses that promotes social learning.

3 Ways to Use a Wiki in Your Course

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In my online courses, I use wikis in conjunction with weekly discussion forums.  My students love the wiki assignments because it gives them a chance to create their own content instead of just responding to a discussion question.  Wikis are a collection of articles about a subject. Depending on your learning management system (LMS), users can add text, images, audio and even YouTube videos to the wiki.

In online courses, wiki assignments are always a fun and creative way to get students to learn a subject. Wikis enhance student learning by getting them to utilize deeper levels of cognition and engagement with a subject.  For my courses, I use wikis in a variety of ways. Some of the wikis my classes have completed include -