I didn’t have any idea what a wiki was until we began using our class wiki in MEDT 6467. I didn’t even know what Wikipedia was—I mean I used it, but I didn’t realize you could add to and edit its contents. Now that I’ve read and learned a little about wikis, several usages for this cool technology come to mind. I really like the idea of using wikis as a way of collaborating with others. This is a beneficial tool for individuals to use to easily share ideas in a format that is far more organized than that of an e-mail or a blog. A wiki would be a good way for a media committee to collaborate. Once committee members meet within their departments and gain necessary feedback, they can post relevant information and share it with one another. The wiki could also be used to feature the meeting agendas and minutes. This would make meetings run more quickly and smoothly. I think wikis would also likely be very useful for teams of teachers who collaborate on lessons and/or projects. The media specialist could teach teachers how to use wikis in this manner, and I believe they would respond positively, if time were set aside to give them the opportunity to get familiar with the technology.
I also love the idea of using a wiki to organize research materials. This would be a great tool to teach students how to engage in the research process in an orderly fashion. Students from elementary to high school grades could benefit from such a useful organization tool. This would be a lesson they could carry with them and use in their future studies. Students could keep all of their weblinks, documents, and quotes in their wiki and then go to the relevant page(s) when the specific material was needed. This concept was highlighted in “Wiki in a K-12 Classroom.”
To address the concern of so called “troublemakers” adding inappropriate material to wikis, I think it would be in the best interest of all parties if authorization were required so only specific individuals would have the privilege of adding posts. I also worry about the need to closely monitor what is posted, especially when students have the ability to add posts. Another major drawback of this technology (which is also a major positive) that I see is that because anyone can add to and edit wikis, it will be difficult to know for certain whether information/material posted is accurate. That will require a whole other lesson , in and of itself, for students and teachers.
2 comments:
Erin, I agree with you that Wikis could be a great way for school committee members to share ideas and concerns. I also like the idea of helping teachers learn about using Wikis by having them collaborate on lessons through it. Your idea of allowing students to organize their project materials on a Wiki is a great one, and it would be a way to keep the Wiki a "living, breathing document." The instructor, however, would definitely have to be monitoring the work and helping keep it accurate. In order to do this, perhaps the teacher could assign one or two students to help monitor the posts. The students are more likely to use this technology, but like you said, first the teachers need to be encouraged and taught how to use the Wiki before they feel comfortable enough to have students use them for projects.
In DeKalb County, fifth graders are expected to create a large-scale social studies fair project. When I say large scale I mean they have to begin working on the assignment in September and have all parts submitted in by early Novemeber. So this is a big deal. However, I don't think the fifth grade teachers or our media specialist know this. Yes, it is a project that is supposed to be completed at home with the assistance of your parents, but realistically many of our students don't have this support. The poor babies most of the time don't even know where to begin. In comes wikis to save the day. This would be an excellent way to get students started on their research. The students chose a topic from a list, so it would be that difficult to centralize useful links.
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