Wikis - Useful or not?
When and where would I use them?
I am trying to reflect on wikis and their use in the classroom. The jury is still out...in fact I'm wondering whether they haven't just left town??
Here is a link to my wiki playground. I hope the link works. I wonder if this is where the generic username comes in??
The student A was part of an idea where each student has a page to themselves and can link to it to answer questions etc. My reflection mainly sits on the above page (including SAMR of use in my context).
Some other points of reflection during my looking at other peoples wikis whilst playing with my own, are as follows...
I'm not
sure if its due to my lack of understanding, but the wiki seems hard to
customise without knowledge of html coding.
I have
only been able to change background colours for now using the one theme
available.
Ability
to collaborate on a wiki, but as they are ongoing...how old are they? This thought was from a site I stumbled on where teachers were able to add their own thoughts and ideas to an ongoing wiki. Unfortunately I cannot for the life of me, remember the address to this one. :(
Some ideas for the use of a wiki in a classroom...
Using a
project for a collaborative team exercise where students can retell a story,
describe characters (scan in their own drawings? This could also note the
adjectives that led them to their mental image of the character).
A planning page for a puppet show or play to
retell the story.
A page to
upload or link to the video of their play/show.
Parent/grandparents
could be directed to this page to view the finished project.
A
comments page for parents etc to provide feedback to the students.
Reflecting some more...
Online
collaborative spaces may sit very well with the social constructivist
theory. There is much food for thought
in this subject though.
I'm
wondering about the lack of human (face to face) interaction. A detrimental effect on the ability to 'read'
body language and facial expressions.
The
ability to share with people from all over the world is no doubt a useful and
'barrier breaking' tool. I believe this
will go a long way towards lessening prejudices. Prejudices often come into play
subconsciously and unintentionally. We
often align ourselves with our 'in-group'
and online collaborative work spaces may prevent these unintentional
prejudices from surfacing, thus providing a fair and unbiased cooperative
learning arena.
The
ability to spell and write coherently could jeopardise collaboration.
Some
students are far more adept at verbal communication and in fact could be turned
off by the written aspect.
Not all
'net' connections are created equal and the ability to share could be the
victim of speed.
Perhaps once I have played with other tools and created accounts with them, I will see more of the ways in which a wiki could be used in a classroom. Watch this space...
Interesting reading about use of wikis in a classroom: http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com.au/2006/08/how-i-use-wikis-what-do-you-do.html and http://mrsroncone.wikispaces.com/Ways+to+use+a+wiki+in+your+classroom
Just reading about an idea (http://mrsroncone.wikispaces.com/Ways+to+use+a+wiki+in+your+classroom) where the teacher has a wiki page for each KLA...does she mean a separate wiki or literally a page? Can you have subpages in a wiki. or pages that aren't viewable to all and sundry. Also she talks about secret passwords...is that like the generic ones we set up for this assignment?
A example of wiki use: http://terrythetennisball.wikispaces.com/
Ok that's me done for today as online tute is later. I'm not stopping, just swapping subjects.
No rest for the wicked!!
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