A wiki is like a big wall with lots of yellow sticky notes on it. Anyone can add new notes if they have something to write with. If something is wrong or incomplete, someone else can come along and change or add information. The advantage of a wiki over a big wall is that people can access it from anywhere they have Internet access (home, school, or elsewhere) and that it is easy to connect notes together by linking pages.

I first became interested in wikis when someone told me about the Wikipedia, a giant encyclopedia (with many spinoff versions) that can be edited by anyone, anytime. How can you trust the information? Well, you can't, at least not completely. But there are some features that make it a bit safer. You can find out when pages were edited and what changes were made. And since lots of eyes are watching, someone else can come along and fix your mistakes.

A class wikipedia is easy to use. It is engaging and empowering for students as they become writers and editors. It is something they can easily share with friends and relatives. And it is easy to keep it updated and improve upon it over time. For these reasons, it is a worthy educational exercise and resource for students in French class.