Last year we introduced wikis for teachers. I remember going to the training and told this was a perfect way to post lesson plans, assignments, and information about our class. A couple of use wondered how this was a wiki. No one could contribute but the teacher. It seemed to me this was simply a page that contained information. This year, the "wikis" of last year were upgraded to true wikis. Teachers, students, and parents can now participate. Teachers are posting assignments that students can do at home and then comment on through the wiki. Podcasts of lessons are also being posted for students who need to hear the lesson again or may have missed school. Students can also post assignments. Other teachers can contribute to lessons and/or make comments. Of course, on these wikis the teacher must approve the comments before they are posted for everyone to see. I am interrested to see the results of using wikis. Some teachers are certain this will not work because students will simply not understand the concept. Other teachers are excited.
Next year I am plannin on upgrading my website to a true wiki. I already use links that benefits students, teachers, and parents; however, there is no interaction among the users. Students are able to post reviews, but I want to expand on this. I willbe incorporating my reading club onto a wiki. I could tape our reading meeting and post to wiki. I love the idea of putting science fair projects and social studies projects on the wiki. There are so many wonderful advancements that can be made in my media center and school through wikis. I am excited!!!
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T Williams writes, “I already use links that benefit students, teachers, and parents; however, there is no interaction among the users.” You are not alone. I see this happening on other school wiki sites, too. There is always good information listed but there seems to be no one interacting with it or with each other. I am thinking that we, as media specialists, need to be the catalysts in getting the discussions going in the wiki. We might need to pose some open-ended questions, problems, or project ideas to get teachers thinking and reacting to each other. As I have been thinking about the use of wikis in a school setting, in this case an elementary school, I have thought about various ways wikis would encourage teacher participation with each other. The old saying goes, “Two heads are better than one,” but in the case of wikis, an infinite number of heads are better than one.
ReplyDeleteHere are some suggestions I have about school wiki collaboration lately:
Within a grade level—
Grade levels could discuss:
(1) ideas for a virtual field trip could be planned online (since actual field trips are mostly out of the question right now)
(2) investigations of ways to teach math concepts that would involve hands-on learning
(3) new ways to encourage reading of AR and non-AR books
School wide —
In a school wiki, a discussion could begin on concerns or thoughts about teaching various types of writing. As the discussion gets rolling,
(1) classroom teachers could share ideas or techniques they have found to work
(2) differentiation ideas from the special education teachers could be solicited and added
(3) Gifted teachers could offer enrichment ideas on using special sentence constructions in describing state history in the second and third grades or the Civil War in fourth or fifth grades
(4) PE, art, and music teachers could send in illustration ideas, raps, jingles, or physical activities with rhythm/rhyme/sentence suggestions for student participation
(5) Media specialists could offer suggestions from their media colleagues, resource lists of materials, and web sites for professional or student exploration of sentence construction.
I feel that opening the wiki world to our teachers is another service the media center can provide and promote. We want teachers talking to each other and using best practices. The wiki is another way to help teachers collaborate in a stress-free open environment.
I like that you feel confident about using the wiki for interaction among the users; I would like to hear how the teachers felt about it at the end of the year and if they were willing to continue to use wikis for lessons and communication. I often wonder how teachers accomodate for students who do not have computers at home or in the classroom. It seems like a lot of work to create a wiki and keep it updated if I am having to also do the regular "paper work" for studnes who do not have access to a computer during the day. I have enjoyed the communication aspect of wikis but I am still very weary of using one as a learning tool in my classroom. What do you think? Have you had any teachers with the same concerns?
ReplyDeleteMy first experience with a wiki was in my last school. We had a wiki that was used to post units and discussions among the teachers. This wasn't used as a true wiki because once the final units were posted, the site was rarely visited again. There was not much collaboration involved, atleast within my content area group. Then in Dr. Cooper's class we created a pathfinder wiki, and I began to see the possibilities of using wiki's in my media center to assist and collaborate with teachers. I can create pathfinders that point teachers and students to useful materials in the media center as well as academically sound websites on my media center website--but a wiki would make this a living document that teachers can add to as they teach the unit and discover additional resources or reflect on how well the unit worked and how to streamline the lessons for next time.
ReplyDeleteThis class is my first experience with a wiki, so it's wonderful learning how others are incorporating them into their classroom. I would imagine the students would be interested in them and some may be more likely to comment on things online. I first heard about wikis about 2 or 3 years ago when a library that I worked. Several of the librarians attended a seminar about them. They sounded interesting but I didn't understand the difference between that and a webpage. So it's great learning how others are using them. I bet as everyone becomes more familiar with them they'll be much more popular than classroom webpages.
ReplyDeleteI love the examples that you have shared. I really think that my school could follow these examples and do great things. The only problem that we have is that the system has blocked wikis. I am not sure why this has been done, but your examples show me that wikis can be a very effective tool for educators. When I was first reading your post, I became concerned that parents and students could post to the wiki, but then I saw that the teacher controls what gets posted. I like that students can actually post their assignments to the wiki. It sounds a lot like what we do with our assignments for this class. Maybe as more school systems start using wikis, my school system will come around. I do know that we have several teachers at my school that still use wikis, despite the school system blocking them. I will share with them what you shared in your post. I think that they will be very excited.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of using a Wiki for your reading club. I could see how a wiki would help to keep students that miss meeting up to date. Using the Wiki as a tool for students to post comments is very motivating to them. The examples you and Linda T. shared are great. Using the Wiki for as a place for teachers to share their thoughts and ideas is awesome. It’s a new, more technological form of the old bulletin board in the teachers lounge! It’s great that this technology is being introduced to parents, teachers and students. I don’t think that our teachers are even familiar with the technology much less at a point where we can use it effectively. However, I do feel that they would be willing to learn about this tool. I’m excited to share this with them.
ReplyDeleteRaina asked if teachers have the same concern as hers. Yes, we are constantly struggling with making sure that no student is left out because of no computer. I work in a very poor school and over half of our population does not have a home computer. Our solution is computer labs at school. Students are taken to a computer lab once a week for computer time. Teachers also write passes for any student who needs to use a computer during the day. While this is not a perfect solution, it does help.
ReplyDelete