Hi Emma,
Happy to help. I'm a big advocate of the Wiki as I am of any technology that motivates kids and helps them do things in new, meaningful ways. I tend to put my energy into more open-ended and non-linear programs that allow kids to tackle problems in different ways, and the Wiki suits my purposes really well.
I think the obvious and crucial point I'd want to make for your research is that the Wiki is just a tool, a really good one in my opinion, but at the end of the day it's up to the desire / skill / interest level of the teacher if they want to make it work for them. For some it really suits them to have their kids blog online, others prefer to write more traditionally in a journal...each to their own.
But can it be a tool that increases student collaboration and motivation? Absolutely. Can it lead to improved learning outcomes? The evidence I've seen is very much so.
I've used the free Wikipaces for educators site for years. It's great but has certain limitations especially in terms of security which is really important. When I came to my current school I convinced the boss to subscribe to it school-wide. Meaning that not only is our school website 'Wikified' (which has good and bad points) we have the ability to make sub-Wikis for each class as well as a staff section, Digital Daybook, Library page, Music page, sports and special interest groups etc. I set it up and I guess am most responsible for managing it as a whole, but effectively it runs itself, with teachers managing their own Wikis.
And like I said before, some teachers are more interested in that than others. I would say with confidence that I am probably the teacher who uses it most interactively with students, it's part of my every day teaching. Students all have their own space and contribute to it, individually and collaboratively, regularly. Other teachers use it in a variety of meaningful ways such as uploading student work and communicating with parents. And others use it sparingly if at all.
I use it for setting homework and sharing units of work - I can embed clips, add worksheets, post assessment rubrics, share resources etc - which parents really appreciate being able to see so visibly. My students work in teams on various weekly tasks, one of which is to create a weekly class newsletter on the wiki - again, being able to add all the interactive elements they really love gets them very motivated. In the week leading up to Christmas I was going to shelve the weekly newsletter due to time constraints but the group whose turn it was was so angry they did it anyway, mostly in their own time (as it happens it didn't get finished - told you so! - but I couldn't fault their motivation!)
My class has a book blog in which they review books they have read - this was a very simple way to introduce them to collaborating on the wiki and it's the one that seems to get most readily embraced by other teachers. We record and post podcasts to our wiki - it has been great doing these this year in Canada and sharing them with my exchange teacher back home. He did the same with his kids so there has been a bit of international collaboration this year.
I've been in a comparatively technologically backward school in Canada this year so my class wiki has been a bit lame but you can have a look at welborne.marryatvilleps.wikispaces.net. The most recent thing we've been working on is a music project in which the students had to collaboratively make a wiki page on a musical genre and make and embed a music video to reflect that genre. To be honest it's been a bit rushed and is not quite finished but some of the have turned out quite well. I have much better examples to show you but right now that's freshest in my mind
Each student has their own password-protected space where they complete a mix of compulsory and optional tasks. If we're doing a project or homework, I usually give the option of doing it on the wiki. Not all kids do - some are more interested than others, some don't have as much internet access at home as others... But those who get into it really take things to another level. The kids who are creative and motivated anyway really like exploring other applications that plug in to the Wiki such as Glogster, Prezi and Wallwisher and some of the stuff they come up with blows my mind. At the same time, many of the kids who you couldn't get to lift a pen in class if you paid them, really respond to the immediacy and interactivity that the wiki affords them. I have seen plenty of evidence - anecdotally, from work samples and from parent feedback - to show improved motivation and literacy outcomes from many students from different parts of the academic spectrum.
And of course we have gallery pages where we can show student work and school events - a window into the class which parents really appreciate. This along with the book blog is one of the first jumping off points for teachers starting out with the wiki. I guess they are comfortable with the idea of book reviews and displaying work in class so it comes naturally. Mrs Cann and her Year 1-2 class is a really good example of a teacher using the wiki effectively in a way that suits her purposes 2012cann.marryatvilleps.wikispaces.net
I'm on the road at the moment and struggling to write this on a tablet but I'm happy to keep answering questions and provide better links to some examples of good wiki use. I even have a power point somewhere of a presentation about Wikis I did at a computer conference not too long ago - I'll have to dig it out. Hope some of this has been helpful!
Feel free to keep in touch,
Best wishes,
Brad
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