A Blog About My Exploration in the Wide World of Technology and Education

Thursday, March 29, 2007

A Good Resource

I think becoming an expert in a field requires not only knowing about what a wiki is, but what wiki sites are good to use for your classroom, how other teachers use the wiki, and how to set up a wiki to make it work for you and your students. This week I found an interesting resource for teachers. PB Wiki, the site I have been using for my class wiki, has put together videos from real teaches discussing wikis and using them in the classroom. Some of the videos are really interesting and I think they would be a good tool for teachers who are looking to introduce wikis to their colleagues. Another great future that PB Wiki is offering is a presentation package. This is a great idea for teachers who want to share what they have learned about wikis and want to teach others. The package includes a presentation, a document that explains the details of a wiki, three premium wiki packages to give away to your audience, and a free shirt. So if you are interested in sharing more about wiki with teachers at your school this is a great site to check out.

http://educators.pbwiki.com/PBwiki%20educator%20videos

Monday, March 26, 2007

Occasionally, There Is Greatest

In my search to expand my knowledge of wikis, I have started to look for good examples of using wikis in education in order to understand how successful wikis are created. One thing I have found that most successful education wikis have in common is the idea that they turn control for the content over to the students and emphasize student ownership over the wiki. I found this award winning wiki in my quest. This is the ultimate pen pal project, if you can even label them it that basic of terms. It involves connecting a class in Georgia with a class in Bangladesh. This is an interesting site to look at the structure of a wiki, because it has a structured set-up with the students using discussion tabs and then posting on a wiki page under their topic. I liked that this wiki has a firm structure, but it still gives the students control over their individual pages. I also liked that the template that was provided for the students to use in their postings. I had never thought of giving the students a template, but it is a way to provide structure without controlling too much of the student ownership over the content. I also enjoyed seeing the rubric that was given and the criteria on evaluating the rubric. This is one area that I have definitely struggled with when using wikis and blogs in my classroom. I know that my students are learning and working collaboratively I can see it in their participation in discussions and postings, but figuring out how to evaluate the wiki or blog is difficult. I liked the approach the rubric uses by assigning very specific point values and guidelines. (Here is a link to the rubric http://flatclassroomproject.wikispaces.com/Rubrics) I think this is an excellent example for wiki design, because it provides structure and feedback for the students, but it still allows the students to maintain ownership over the content and also flexibility in their learning and also provides for student collaboration.

http://flatclassroomproject.wikispaces.com/

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Importance of Community Discussion in Our Changing Classrooms

Part of being a teacher, I sincerely believe is learning as much and maybe more from our failures in the classroom as opposed to our success. My philosophy has always been I will try something once, whether it is a new type of food, a new driving route to work, or a new restaurant or shopping center. I believe in giving everything at least one shot to prove it is better than what I have been doing before, and it is this same philosophy that I have carried into my classroom. The only problem with this philosophy is that sometimes learning form your mistakes can be a difficult and painful process and one that often I question if I want to repeat. Integrating more and more technology in my classroom has given me both some amazing successes and some horrifying crash and burn failures, but I press forward. One thing that I have always found helpful when trying to overcome my technology defeats is talking to someone else who has also been through a similar experience and figuring out how they handled or did things differently, So, in my quest to wiki expertise, I decided to also look for a way to validate my failures and I found this wonderful bog that is aptly entitled, “My Brilliant Failure”. It is posted on a really interesting website, Kairosnews: A Weblog for Discussing Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy. This is a really interesting forum where tons of discussion is occurring about research, experience, and observations about technology and a lot about wikis in general. I think being part of a community of people working on and researching similar ideas is important for changing the face of teaching and learning. I truly believe that wiki and blogs and other social interactive software are changing our classrooms whether we are involved or not. All of my students have a MySpace or Facebook account, so whether we like it or not teachers need to bone up on their technology knowledge and be prepared for the classroom change that is coming. This article “My Brilliant Failure” highlighted how not allowing enough control over a wiki content limits learning and the effectiveness of the tool, which I thought was a good observation. However, I chose to blog about this site this week more for the fact that there is a place for discussion and venting about technology and rhetoric and composition, where you can receive feedback and opinions. Plus it made me feel better to see someone else dealing with a brilliant failure, although I don’t think I could call many of my failures brilliant.

Kairosnews: http://kairosnews.org/node/3794

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Wikis and Writing - Web 2.0 at its best!

I was inspired by one of my classmate’s discussions of Web 2.0, a term that I have recently become very familiar with, and so I began to look at ideas of this Web 2.0 concept in terms of my focus on wikis. I found this interesting wiki from the New York City Writing Project (http://www.nycwp.org/paulallison/newsItems/departments/wikiTeaching). They introduce their blog as a story about moving from the “old style” of interactive websites into “Web 2.0 dynamic wiki”. I found their rationale for using a wiki over a website interesting and very much in line with the research I have found supporting the use of wikis. “By choosing the wiki over the website, we were choosing to put students into the middle of this project of building this new form of information, knowledge, and culture”. The idea of placing students into real meaningful learning situations where they take ownership of their work is one of the key reasons I would chose to incorporate a wiki in my classroom. This wiki is a wonderful example of the collaboration, self-awareness, and learning that can be accomplished through a wiki. Instead of students feeling like writing is a chore that the do alone with no social interaction, which for many is not an activity that they enjoy nor are actively engaged in learning, the wiki provides an opportunity for collaboration and peer editing of writing, but it adds a social interaction and a feeling of community that is often lost in some traditional English classrooms. I especially found the wiki page Fostering Latino Pride: A Story of Collaborative Writing very insightful about the expressive ability of a wiki, but also the opportunity for real instruction on writing and expressing ideas in written form. (http://www.nycwp.org/paulallison/2005/03/24#a32) This is a great example of a wiki be3ing used to foster collaboration and writing skills.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The Digital Native Divide - Bracing For Change

This week I read an interesting article from the Journal of Online Education, Uses and Potential of Wikis in the Classroom, the article focused on the changing paradigms in education from print based to orally based learning. It examined the idea that Digital Natives, students that have grown up their whole lives surrounded by technology, are inherently different from students ten to twenty years ago that sat in the same desks. The article argues that these students have different learning styles and that as educators it is our job to engage these students and to teach them based on their new learning style. The article discusses the effectiveness of bridging these gaps between Digital Natives and their teachers through the use of a wiki. “Wikis are incontestably a print-based technology, but they also encourage students to acknowledge and utilize the power of student-to-student interaction, community knowledge, and structure”(2007). The article discusses the use of wikis to create social interaction and to engage students in communicating through writing again. This reading really opened my ideas to the idea that wikis are not just tools, but instead might be part of the changing face of education, because we as educators need to catch up to our students technologically in order to effectively teach them in the classroom. I never considered the idea that Digital Natives had their own specific learning styles that are different from what has been traditionally discussed as a part of educational theory. It made me begin to think do we need to add a category to learning styles that addresses not only students who learn visually, spatially, kinesthetically, or aurally, but now students that learn through technology? I think this is the most interesting article I have come across in my search to become an “expert” in the wiki field. If you are interested in this topic the article also addresses the benefits of wikis, gives examples of using wikis in education, and talks about the issue of accuracy in wikis, which I discussed on a previous blog. All in all this is an excellent resource for educators interested in the topic.

Article: http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=258

Friday, March 16, 2007

Aha! Finally An Answer - At Least To One Question

I first looked at the Teacher First Website as a way to look at some interesting lessons on using a wiki in a multitude of subjects, but as I continued to explore the site I stumbled across something great- an answer to my question Why A Wiki? The first thing the site provides is a mini look into the world of theory and research that support why the wiki format would be beneficial for classroom use, and I mean mini look – only two sentences. But however short their examination was one sentence really stuck with me, “Build on the best of Bloom: Students use synthesis and evaluation constantly and consistently when they work on a wiki”. I thought this was a great point, because students can build connections between new and old information as well as evaluate and synthesize what they are working on through the wiki format. If used correctly I can definitely see how wiki could be a tool for students to compile and link their knowledge.
As a writing teacher, I also appreciated the emphasis on that wikis should be used to reinforce creativity and more importantly the idea that writing is never done. Because of the wikis open editable format students can continue to rewrite, revise, and edit their work as well as give comments, suggestions, and help to their classmates. I am currently using the wiki in my 8th grade English class, and I having students rewrite parts of Julius Caesar with a modern twist. They are learning how to read and interpret Shakespeare and also are learning how to apply the themes to a more modern context. A bonus from this project is that students have begun to see that they have the ability to continue to change the things from their rewrites that aren’t quite correct after we discuss them in class. The students really have enjoyed this project and have liked the idea that they can revise and help edit their other group members so easily. The Teacher First Website also focuses on this idea that for teaching writing this format makes the revision process a lot easier and more reflective. Students can help each other as well as edit their own work, but with the wiki I am using they are also e-mailed when something is changed on their wiki, so they can see and approve any corrections made by their group members.
I also thought that the Teacher First Website gives a great list of questions to ask yourself about your class and teaching style to determine whether or not using a wiki is for you and will work in your classroom. I am beginning to think the question should be why not wiki, instead of why wiki? I want to continue my examination of both questions and I think my next blog will be examining more concrete educational research on the topic, but for this week I think I have presented some very interesting articles and websites that lead me to believe wikis are worth incorporating into the curriculum as long as you do so with a solid plan and a clear goal about what you want your students to learn from the experience. So if you are interested in the wiki question or want some ideas of how to use a wiki in your classroom check out the Teacher First Website and all their information on wikis. They een have a great section on how to set-up your wiki including talking to parents and getting administrative approval.

Teacher First Website: Why A Wiki http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/whywiki.cfm

Teacher First Website: Wiki Ideas For the Classroom http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/wikiideas2.cfm

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Continuing the Search

I am continuing my search to answer the question why use a wiki in education? As I was searching, I stumbled across an article from Time Magazine It's a Wiki, Wiki World by Chris Taylor. (Here is the link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1066904-1,00.html) This interesting article is about the creator of Wikipedia. For everyone who hasn’t heard of this growing phenomenon, Wikipedia is a wiki encyclopedia that can be edited and added to by people from all over the world. The article outlines the interesting concept that more people are smarter together than a small group of elite. This is the concept that Wikipedia was founded on. The idea that if everyone in the world got together and created an online encyclopedia, it would be far more knowledgeable than any encyclopedias that are created by small groups of people is a different way of thinking about compiling information. I think this is an incredibly interesting concept, because you get very different and diverse perspectives on Wikipedia, because it is edited by so many different types of people. The problem though for educators is that if anyone can edit the encyclopedia than how do you know the information is correct. This is a problem they address in the article. The creator of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, seems to think this problem will solve itself, because the longer Wikipedia is in existence the more people will have an opportunity to edit it and to help make it accurate. However, this inaccuracy poses problems for educators. I recently was discussing with my librarian about making it a part of our library skills class to teach students how to identify good sources on the Internet, because so many of my students will use information off the Internet for projects that is not necessarily from a reliable source. I have begun to not let students use Wikipedia as a source for their papers and projects. I think this article was a great look however about how mainstream wikis have become and how successful this type of format really is. I am beginning to think about the usefulness of wikis in the classroom to create this type of collaborative environment. I saw an idea for having a wiki in which students work together to create a class study guide as they move throughout the semester, so they can use it as a review for the final exam. I thought this was an interesting way to apply the Wikipedia model to the classroom and could be a good reason to use wikis in the classroom, because they foster collaboration and also peer editing. I am going to continue to explore this question for my next posting.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Initial Exploration into the Wide World of Wikis

My first explorations into the wide world of wikis lead me to search for introductory materials that would answer basic questions like, what is a wiki? And why I should I use it in the classroom? The questions that I was asking and I know other teachers would want to discover the answers to before they would embark on their own trial of the wiki world. I discovered this great webquest that introduces teachers to what a wiki is, The 21st Century Classroom: Using Wikis
http://www.webquest.org/questgarden/lessons/34458-060902130930/index.htm. It places the teacher in the role of learner as they explore various wikis and learn how to edit and create a wiki of their own. I really liked the idea of using a webquest to teach teachers how to use a new form of technology, like a wiki. I think this is something that I could use as professional development in my school and it also might be a good tool to teach parents about wikis prior to their children using one in class. It provides several links to wikis as well as links to articles and blogs about using wikis in the classroom. This webquest definitely answered the first question I posed at the beginning of my exploration, what is a wiki? A wiki, which is derived from the Hawaiian word wiki wiki which means quick, and according to my investigation through the webquest a wiki is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content. It also allows for linking among any number of pages. The other question I posed at the beginning of this exploration is a little more complicated to answer. Why should I use a wiki in the classroom? This question will take some further exploration. One answer I did find was a wiki can be helpful for classroom organization and dissemination of information. However, I have a feeling I can find some better answers to this question as I continue my exploration.

Friday, March 9, 2007

Let's Start Exploring

This blog will focus specifically on my exploration of how different forms of technology can enhance and improve teaching and learning. Part of the purpose of my blog is to provide a forum of discussion related to the readings and work done in the EME 5404 Instructional Computing II course at the University of Florida.

I am currently very interested in the use of the Internet in education. In my own classroom I have begun to incorporate blogs and wikis into students projects and discussions. I also am very interested in how these types of discussion forums can improve student understanding and more specifically improve how students express their knowledge and understanding of a topic. As an English teacher, I am constantly looking for ways to engage my students in meaningful writing and discussions of literary works, and I find that blogs and wikis give the students a new and interesting outlet. Throughout the next weeks I am going to examine blogs and wikis and their use in education.

I look forward to sharing my explorations and getting feedback on mu ideas and findings.