Wikis. Another tool I thought I hadn’t used. I have used Wikipedia. I’ve also been telling my students about Wikileaks for months because it helped start the revolution in Tunisia which has snowballed across Africa. I know we post links and materials to our WGA wiki pages. Still, when I thought about a wiki, I still thought “static web page”. The interactive part of it was missing for me as I thought about collaboration and teachers.
I looked at all the recommended links for inspiration. I liked learning that wiki actually means quick in Hawaiian. Then, I just began searching and found a video called, “Wikis in Plain English” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY) which made it so clear for me. I realized that having a visual demonstration would be equally helpful to teachers and students as well. Now, I can see how useful this tool can be for collaboration. I’ve been asked many times to “run down to my room” to evaluate a paper another teacher might be working on rather than sending the documents back and forth. Our mail system can hang up and delay for hours some days. I play email tag editing resumes and scholarship applications with my own college kids. A wiki, where the page can be downloaded as a word document later, seems like a much better way to collaborate.
I learned that the biggest benefits of wiki pages are their ability to be huge, like Wikipedia. There is plenty of room to add and expand. Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki (http://www.libsuccess.org/) is an enormous resource. There are thousands of other wikis to find ready-made references. Look at http://www.wikiindex.org/. The time saving from searching would be so useful. Why not have teachers collaborate school-to-school on materials which support standards for their grade or subject? It would be nice to share resources this way. The benefit of being able to search categories and to reorganize your work as you need to makes it superior to a blog.
Media specialists could help bridge schools and teachers by helping compile resource lists. In our media classes we’re encouraged to know what teachers need so we can pull materials. Perhaps we need media specialists to view books and materials at other schools. They could review materials check out the most each year to fill any resource gaps at their own schools.
I was surprised to learn that you can monitor changes made on a wiki. This made me a lot more comfortable with the idea. Even if a student messed up the page, it would be nice to identify the student, go back and take advantage of a teachable moment to not repeat it. The “Wiki in a K-12 Classroom” site gave the Science Fair example first. My students just turned their Science Fair projects in on Friday. It was difficult getting information on how I was supposed to do this at my school. It would be nice to have a science fair collaboration so that we’re all on the same page with expectations for the county competition. Many students planned to work in a pairs and groups, but weren’t able to work out a way to collaborate. Next year, I will know they can use wikispaces.com to make it possible. Parents could also stay informed with monitoring progress since anyone from any computer could have access to the wiki.
Students able to pull up their class work while in the media center would help clarify for the media specialist the assignment and progress of the students coming to work. This would foster more collaboration with classroom teachers. I think the idea of having students give feedback on a book the class is reading would encourage students to read more thoughtfully knowing they were going to have to document their own thoughts. I think that teachers and the media specialist could collaborate on school-wide or multi-grade book readings, too. Perhaps older students could create for younger classes. This would foster collaboration across grade levels which my principal is now pushing.
My school has no electronic schedule. The library schedule would be great online. It would save me a long walk and valuable time. The same issue occurs with our computer lab scheduling. It would be very helpful if the media specialist set up an electronic wiki schedule to help teachers schedule and free up time quickly for everyone to see.
Finally, the ability to quickly update information made me think of our snow day cancellations. I heard that there were schools in Ohio posting class work online so students could work at home and they count that toward a school day.
(http://www.switched.com/2010/10/26/mississinawa-school-implements-online-snow-day-classes/ ) NC is considering the same (http://www.examiner.com/online-learning-in-raleigh/online-learning-options-for-snow-days)
Collaboration could continue this way using wikis. Having all the materials available online takes away kids’ excuses of not having their books or materials with them and could save us all make up day hassles.
This is another tool that I will have to play with to actually get a handle on how best to use it in my school career. I always feel I need more free time to play with it all.
Good job researching so many links Jane. Wikis are somewhat new to me, so I really find this interesting. At my school, Ginger has set up a wiki for sign up in the computer labs. This does save time and effort when you are planning an activity. You can check and sign up from your room. Many of the teachers in my district use wikis instead of school notes. They are able to upload forms, handouts, rubrics etc. As a parent, this is really helpful since all kids occasionally loose papers or make mistakes.
ReplyDeleteOnce all of the staff in a school is adept at using a wiki, this would be a great way to conduct as well as document meetings and share resources. We participate in weekly Professional Learning Committee (PLC) meetings which are grade and subject level meetings. Rather than running to copy items that are shared this would be a great way to organize and “file” them. Also, at times, there are team parent conferences, SST meetings and IEP meetings which interfere with participation. This would alleviate some of those issues.
Students working on group projects would also benefit, much like we are doing with our blogs. My boys collaborated with a friend for the Social Science Fair. This would have been a way for them to do it more independently and efficiently. (Not a lot gets done in a timely fashion during a spend the night.) I also love the idea of the older students creating wikis for younger students.
Wow! I find the piece you mentioned about the schools in Ohio and North Carolina about the snow days particularly interesting. The link on switched.com noted "forced" to complete classwork online. Their link to the Washington Post story was not operational when I read your post, but I would truly love to see how they would enforce that edict. Students today will certainly be faced with more online learning experiences whether in traditional face-to-face classes or in an online program. Whether through the use of Wikis or in person, students definitely benefit from collaborative work. With these truths present, it seems appropriate to marry the two concepts.
ReplyDeleteI was new to wikis last semester but I have quickly become a HUGE fan in a very short amount of time. Learning to create my first wiki was very time consuming but worth the effort. Now I can create and edit a wiki very quickly. The links you shared provide a great introduction to the wonderful world of wikis - media specialists could use these links to create a great training module that introduces wikis to their stakeholders. If you are interested in checking out how Georgia media specialists make great use of a wiki check out the GLMA Wiki at http://georgiamedia.wikispaces.com/. It is another good example of wikis at work.
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting that school districts were utilize wikis to overcome snow days. The only pitfall I see with this is the technology divide. What happens to the students who do not have internet access at home and can't get to the library because of the snow?
I really liked the video you found on You Tube. It did make wiki's pretty plain and simple. Until this semester I had no clue what a wiki was or how to use one. I had the opportunity to try to create one last semester but was too scared. I think using the wiki with kids is going to be a very valuable resource. I use to have a web page where i posted documents for parents and students through out the year. I think that using a wiki would be even better! ( although i would have to figure out a way for them not to change some docuements...research!) I also could have used it this Valentine's Day with my daughter's class in planning the V-Day party. We were using email and everytime I signed up to bring an item, someone else did too. I was frustrated and the wiki could have solved this problem. I think that I am more comfortable in using wiki's now and really think that this could be a great tool to use as an inservice for our school media specialist. I think that i am also going to email our county person in charge of our INTRA-net to see if it is not something that they might consider utilizing to help with collaboration between the schools. WOW! What doors that could open!
ReplyDeleteYou really brought out a lot of ideas here. I had never heard of using wikis for scheduling. Our media center has Outlook calendars for computer labs, media center, etc., but I’ll have to look at the wiki option. I enjoyed the Wikis in Plain English video. I agree – that would be a good tool to introduce wikis to our teachers. Visuals are extremely helpful when it comes to introducing a new concept like this. I was amazed that a school district had students checking in at a wiki to complete assignments on a snow day. It would definitely be a good way to keep everyone from getting behind. This could be used more regularly for absentees. Teachers could post their make-up work and information about that day’s lesson. There are still students that don’t have access to computers away from school, so they wouldn’t benefit from this opportunity. In regard to your comments about monitoring changes on a wiki, I first signed up for our class wiki asking to be notified of changes. I soon realized that I didn’t need that many notifications. Every time someone posted their podcast or something, I got an email. I quickly changed my settings. I do realize that this can be a big plus in some settings though.
ReplyDeleteI am fairly new to the world of wiki’s. Other than sites like Wikipedia, I have very little experience in dealing with wiki’s until this semester. My knowledge and opinion of them continue to grow. After collaborating on the pathfinder assignment I saw how valuable a wiki can be to a classroom. Now, as you have pointed out I realize how we can use them to collaborate with teachers at other school as well. What a great idea! I had never thought about using a wiki in such a broad term/way. Teachers are often seeking out new ideas to incorporate into their lessons. If schools and teachers shared wiki’s the information available to them on these resources could save them a lot of time conducting research. This could also allow for the opportunity for students to collaborate with students at other schools. What a great concept!
ReplyDeleteI also thought the idea of using wiki’s for something like the science fair projects was a great idea as well. Many students at my school either do not own a USB flash drive or they often forget them at home. If the student’s were working on a wiki they could possibly bypass the need for the flash drive. They could simply access their wiki in the media center, and as you stated they would have the information at their fingertips if they needed assistance from the media specialist. This would also be a great way to ensure parents are aware of the information required for the assignment because they could access it as well.