One of the reasons that I wanted to work with Wetpaint was their understanding of the power of a wiki and the community it creates. Wikis by themselves are great tools, but if you learn how to build a wiki network, they truly become powerful Web 2.0 tools in education.

Take this wiki for example; 1198 users, a true wiki community! I have been thinking a lot about communities lately. Recently I have been traveling around the Asia region and haven't been able to keep up on answering questions in the forum. When I logged on two days ago to catch up, I found that the community had picked up my slack and had answered most of the questions. This is a community who helps each other to become better, to understand the program, to answer questions and make connections.

Is your classroom or educational wiki a community? Are your students helping to create a body of knowledge that allows everyone to learn?

Wetpaint wikis can be extended in many different ways. There are discussion threads for every page and a discussion forum where you can ask and answer questions. What makes a wiki so powerful is the collaboration that it allows among a group of people who are passionate around a given topic.

A great example of a collaborative class wiki is Jason Welker's "Welker's Wikinomics Wiki". Have a look at how this IB Economics teacher has created a community of learners around a topic. A site that is created and managed by a student community.

Do you have a wiki that is ran by a student community? Are you using a wiki to create a community of learners? Share your wiki with this community in the threads below.