Originally, I only thought of using wikis as another way to solve problems outside of the classroom. These would be more long term assignments that would be handed in by students in a week or more. That is, until I hit upon Mr. Bontront's grade 12 chemistry wiki.
Mr. Bontront had students assigned to groups and each group had to produce a wiki on a subject of their choice. The students could all work on the wiki at their own pace and there was very little class time set used except to set each group up with a wiki on his main account.
When the presentations were due, Mr. Bontront asked in another wiki whether or not the students would want to do this experience again. A large majority of the students said that they would do this again!... It certainly must have been a good experience for them if they were willing to do it again. The other part of this site that I like was that all the students posted additional information that was needed in their presentation on the comment page. So, the teacher got to see the amount of participation of each student. If there were several messages that stated something like: "student X, we are waiting for you part," then I would be able to talk to student x and find out what was the reason for the lack of participation.
The biggest hurdle that I could see would be a student not having a computer at home to work on the wiki. That would mean that the student would have to use school time in the library or the computer lab. While I don't necessarily think this is bad, it will just mean that students will need to be more concerned with time management.
Probably the best part of doing these projects as a wiki is that I can check on progress as the project goes on. I can also determine the amount of effort each group has put into the project. This also means that there should be less requests for "additional time" due to illness, family situations, etc.
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