A Interesting Case Study

One thing that I have really been looking for as I explored wikis in education is examples of good integration and evidence of student learning through the use of wikis. Because the question really comes down to when as teachers we decide to embark into the world of wikis, is this really going to help my students learn? If the answer is no then I am wasting my time trying to learn about this new technology (at least this is the answer that many of my colleagues readily and probably too quickly toss out about most new technologies), but never the less it is true if it does not show true potential to help students learn then we shouldn't be investing time and money into it. So this week, in my continued to quest to disprove the naysayers at my school and prove that wikis are a great tool for collaboration and learning, I found a great case study on wikis used as a part of a collaborative storytelling project in a primary school in Canada. The case study determines that using a wiki as a collaborative web-based storytelling tools is feasible and beneficial. It also provides good guidelines for ensuring the activity is successful in section 4. Implications. One thing the case study advocates is letting the groups’ self-organize. In previous postings, I have talked about assigning students roles to ensure participation, however this is another interesting way to examine the structure of the wiki. If students choose their own organization and roles perhaps they will take more ownership over their work, since they chose their own role in the project. This is an idea that the case study supports. For all you educators out there that want to see an interesting implementation of a wiki and the subsequent research, I found this to be an extremely interesting case study.

Wiki as a Tool Case Study: http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/iit-publications-iti/docs/NRC-48234.pdf

Selecting A Wiki For the Classroom

This has been a long and busy week. I really don’t understand why my school has its Spring Break in March, because I could really use another one right about now. Despite my feelings of exhaustion this week, I was able to find a very interesting research based article out of a University in Canada examining the features and criteria for selecting and using wikis in education. As part of my attempt to coalesce my ideas about wikis, I wanted to determine a way to evaluate the selection of a wiki for educational use. Some of the things that I believe are important in determining if a wiki should be used in education is cost, usability, and privacy controls. In education, funding is always something that must be considered, however there are a number of wikis that are free for educators. How easy a wiki is to use for both the teacher and the students is very important. Teachers already have a lot of other things to deal with that are time consuming, so in order for technology to beneficial it should not add to the teachers workload and frustrations, instead it needs to be easy to update and maintain to make it feasible for most teachers. The other issue that must be considered before using a wiki in the classroom is privacy controls. In order to protect our students, teachers need to make sure that they have the ability to password protect their wiki in order to prevent just anyone from commenting on your class wiki. The article I read this week identified these as well as other criteria. They came up with an interesting list of consideration for choosing a wiki as well as other considerations that need to be made for implementing wikis in education. One consideration that the report notes is the formatting of each wiki is different and for on you might need to know html, while another wiki might just require you to click a button. This is something I considered when creating my own classroom wiki. I have limited knowledge of html, and most of my students have even less knowledge of html, so I had to find a user friendly wiki. So I don’t think that this is a problem, because there are so many different wikis and choices now that most people can find a wiki that suits their formatting needs. Another idea that the report introduced that I thought was interesting was the fact that unlike thread discussions it is often difficult to see who the editor of a wiki is, so that credit can be appropriately given. One thing I did to counter this issue with my class wiki is that I have students sign in with their name and password to the wiki and then when they edit PbWiki sends me an e-mail with the name of the person editing and which information they changed or added, so I can give credit. That is how I approached this issue, however with a larger class or a school-wide wiki this is something that must be considered and addressed.
I thought this report presented an interesting look at wikis and educational use.

Technical Evaluation Report - Educational Wikis: features and selection criteria: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/163/244

Wiki As An Equalizing Tool

I have continued to explore the idea of collaboration using wikis and this week I also found an article that discusses the collaborative possibilities of both blogs and wikis. The article
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES Blogs and Wikis: Environments for On-line Collaboration is a scholarly examination of blogs and wikis and their use as a collobrative tool. The reason I enjoyed this article is because it explores the concept of Web 2.0. I guess it is still a novel idea to me, since I just learned about the idea, but I find the comparison between first generation web to Web 2.0 very interesting. One idea that the article presents that I had never thought about, but is a great observation is that, “Discussion forums are often seen as an equalizing tool, which encourage universal participation in discussion compared to face-to-face dialogue” (Godwin-Jones, 2003, pg.12). This is a great aspect of using wikis and blogs to foster discussion and student collaboration, because it allows each students voice to be heard equally. One of my biggest concerns when leading discussions in my classroom is that students that have opinions or want to speak are afraid or feel like they are not being listened to, because other students are confident and sometimes louder with their opinions. I attempt to foster a classroom environment where students feel they can share and discuss freely, however I know that in reality I struggle to accomplish creating that environment. The great part about a wiki is this environment is almost automatic. Students feel a certain amount of freedom, because they are not face-to-face and they can share their ideas without any interruption. This is an aspect of the wiki experience that I had not thought about, but it adds to the arguement, why not use wikis in education? Check out the article at http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/pdf/emerging.pdf. IT provides soem additional resources at the end that will be benefcial as well.

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

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/

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

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.