Avenue Help Center | Adding a Wiki Activity

Adding a Wiki Activity

Margarita Berezyanskaya

Last Update 23 days ago

A Wiki is a web page that can be edited by all registered users. WikiHow and Wikipedia are popular examples. These are great for encouraging collaborative projects to produce a final product, as well as task planning.

The Wiki activity module enables participants to add and edit a collection of web pages. A Wiki can be collaborative, with everyone being able to edit it, or individual, where each user has his/her own wiki that only he/she can edit. There are no individual Wikis in the Avenue courseware, but this feature can be easily set up when setting up new Wikis. A history of previous versions of each page in the Wiki is kept, listing the edits made by each participant.

Using the Wiki Activity to Enhance Blended Learning

Wiki activities are most commonly used collaboratively. When used in this way, they provide the opportunity for students to work together to complete tasks outside of the face-to-face classroom. There are a number of these tasks in the Avenue courseware, such as sharing Internet research findings, brainstorming ideas, or building a class list. These activities are most effective if they are introduced to students in the face-to-face class. Instructors of LINC 1 or LINC Literacy might find it useful to add to their course a Wiki that gives each user an individual Wiki. This provides each student with his/her own writing space and could be used for a basic online writing activity, such as typing a composition they may have written in class.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Adding a Wiki Activity

1. On your course, click the Turn editing on button.

2. In the topic where the link to the Wiki should appear, click on the Add an activity or resource link.

The Add a new activity or resource pop-up appears.

3. Select Wiki in the Activities tab.

The Adding a new Wiki page appears.

The General section is used to update general information about the activity.

4. Type a descriptive name in the Wiki name text box.

5. Click Show/hide advanced buttons in the Description text box to display more options in the Text editor toolbar if needed.

6. Type detailed instructions for the Wiki activity task in the Description text box. These are the instructions for students.

7. To display the instructions on the course home page, select Display description on course page. However, to keep the page less cluttered this is not recommended.

8. Select the type of Wiki using the Wiki mode option. Collaborative wiki is the default; Individual wiki gives each student/user his/her own wiki space that only that student can modify.

9. The First page name setting specifies the name of the page.

The Format section is used to set the format when editing the wiki pages.

10. The Default format setting selects the type of toolbar. HTML is the courseware standard and it gives users the standard Moodle Text editor. Creole is a smaller editing toolbar and it may be especially suitable for students at lower benchmark levels. Please ignore the NWiki format.

11. When it is selected, the Force format setting removes the option for users to choose the format when creating a new page.

The Common module settings section is common to many Moodle activities and resources.

12. The Availability setting is used to Show/Hide the activity. This is identical to using the Show/Hide icons when the Turn editing on function is enabled on a course home page.

13. The ID Number setting sets an ID number for advanced use of the grade book. (This is not used in the Avenue courseware.)

14. The Group mode setting enables the use of groups. (More information is available in the Organizing Learners Using Groups article.)

15. If you choose Separate groups for Group mode, another option appears for Grouping. This option enables a collection of groups to gather together and work as a larger group.

Settings in the Restrict access section can be used to limit access to the activity. (More information is available in the Setting Up and Using the Restrict Access Settings article.)

Upon selecting the Add restriction... button a pop-up appears.

16. Click the Save and display button to preview the Wiki.

17. Click on the Create page button.

A page with an option to create the first page in the wiki appears if the Force format option was not selected.

18. Type in the content of the first page in the HTML format text box. You can add images, voice recordings, videos and links in this area.

19. Click on the Save button.

20. Return to the course home page using the course breadcrumb link.

Deployment Tips

Give tips to students on how to edit the Wiki.
The wiki mode (individual or collaborative) cannot be changed after the Wiki is created.
The First page name cannot be formatted after the page is created.
Refer to the Managing Wikis article for information about using the Wiki activity with your students.

Video Resources

Wiki

This video explains how to use a wiki.

Resources

Moodle Documents: Wiki activity

Moodle Documents: Wiki settings

Moodle Documents: Using Wiki

Moodle Documents: Wiki FAQ