Wiki's and What Have I Learned

Photo courtesy of CC

This course is beginning to come to an end, but that does not mean my learning of Web 2.0 tools will. Rather, I feel like I have just gotten started with each of the tools and each of the possibilities and how the tools can be used for education. 

Wiki's were a tool that I felt were not going to be of interest to me. I had joined several wiki's but hadn't returned to them or contributed to any. I know the very first wiki I contributed to was the math cohort for my master's course. I was the first to say hello and introduce myself. I think I did this because I knew I had to get use to the tool and learn it. The other wiki I'd joined was the Twitter Daily5chat. Again, I joined and never did very much. I didn't return to it even though I knew members of my PLN were posting information which I might find useful. Basically, all I had done on a wiki was join, never contributed, just looked around a bit and used it as a place to find information. To be honest, I've never used Wikipedia either. I'd often heard how a lot of the information can be changed and sometimes it can be unreliable. I stayed away out of fear. I still haven't embraced Wikipedia but it's not off the table of perhaps taking a look at in the future. 

All of that changed when I decided to investigate and learn how to use a wiki. I created my own, a place where I share some information on presentations I do, math work I've done and some games I've created for a program I use in spelling called Words Their Way. The other investigation I took on was to contribute to the Daily5 wiki. I had to start someplace and this was as good of a place to start since it was with people whom I felt comfortable with and trusted. Here is a list of what I've learned about wikis and how they can be used in education. 

What have I learned about wiki's?

1. You shouldn't be afraid of them. They don't bite! I have a lot of experience with blogs and blogging, I'm not an expert but I'm willing to learn. Contributing to the Daily5 wiki was easy. You can see my post here for what that was like. Due to my willingness to learn and experience with other Web 2.0 tools such as blogging; it wasn't that difficult to figure out how to add content, files, text (edit text, etc) to the wiki.

2. Wikis are a collaborative tool where authors have the opportunity to write thoughtfully, clearly and critically. Authors of a wiki have the opportunity to create a piece of writing in collaboration with each other. Wiki's allow the authors an opportunity to create quality pieces of writing. What I didn't realize and understand about the purpose of wiki's, that Berger & Trexler taught me, was that a wiki is about "authoring content, rather than just downloading existing content on the Web" (p. 96).
Guth (2007) also writes about this same understanding,

When contributing to a wiki project, students are not just writing for the teacher, as is the case in traditional classroom environments, but for and with their peers. As such, they
promote collective authoring which inherently entails peer review.

Authoring others work is an area I still feel uncomfortable doing because if others have taken the time to write in a thoughtful and critical way, who am I to change, modify or edit anything they have written.

3. Wikis are a tool for collaboration, they can be engaging and exciting and if used for this purpose, they can provide an opportunity to hone your writing skills to be critical and reflective about what you write on other wikis. I do not necessarily agree that they have to be used for this purpose, or at least not when you first develop a wiki. I am using mine for sharing of resources and not necessarily ideas or opinions. Do I want others to add there perspectives or other games, of course I do? But for right now, I am good with it being a site to share and post information for others to collect. It is after all  a beginning process, I am hoping to evolve the wiki into something more reflective where others can add their critical writing and thoughts.

4. A wiki has RSS feeds built in, so you can stay up to date with any changes members might make. I'm learning to really like RSS feeds and find them to be very handy. It saves you time when checking for any changes to the wiki or wikis you subscribe to and other sites as well. 

5. I believe my students could learn to use a wiki to write creatively and thoughtfully. Very similar to the Manyvoices project (p. 83) in William Kist's book The Socially Networked Classroom. Except it would be done on a wiki. Students would make critical decisions as to what should stay, be added or edited from the story.  Practice would be needed in how to edit and think critically and thoughtfully about what they wanted to add to the piece of writing but I believe it could be possible. My class will be discovering this next week or the first week of December. 

6. I don't believe you always need to use a Web 2.0 tool for the original purpose it was intended for. I find that's the wonderful thing about Web 2.0 tools, there are endless possibilities on how you can use a Web 2.0 tool.

This is not a complete list of all that I have learned about wiki's but I do believe they are some of the more important aspects of this Web 2.0 tool that I did not expect to like. I am glad I chose this tool because it allowed me to open my mind about sharing resources, now I just need to be brave and add my thoughts to someone else's wiki. Wish me luck.

References

Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Guth, S. (2007). Wikis in education: is public better?. WikiSym ’07. doi: 10.1145/1296951.1296958

Kist, W., (2010), The socially networked classroom teaching in the new media age. Thousand Oaks. CA: Corwin.

Subscribing to your own RSS Feeds

I took my professors advice and started subscribing to my own RSS feeds, blogs, wiki and Flickr feeds. It's interesting to see what others see when they subscribe to your feeds. 

After doing some editing on the AprilBrown wiki I received an email from Wikispaces. I decided to have every notification turned on so I could see what was happening. I've never added to a wiki or edited one before. To turn on these notifications go to Manage Wiki<Tools<Notifications. Click which email notifications you want to receive. As you can see I wanted them all clicked so that I could see every change that happened.

I am also subscribing to the RSS feeds so I'm getting any updates to my Google Reader. Wanting to see what others are seeing is one way to help me utilize this tool.

Here is the email notification I received when I edited it as a guest. 

The red highlighted areas are deletions I made and the green highlighted areas is content which is staying on the wiki. This is pretty neat to see what changes have been made. It gives a completely different perspective on my thinking about a wiki. It doesn't just have to be you adding content but others as well. For educational purposes, I can see how these email notifications can help students. Your edited work is visible for you to see. Therefore, it gives you an opportunity to improve your writing skills. The person who edited your writing may have added ideas or more insight that you hadn't thought about.

How could this be used in a primary classroom? I think it would be perfect for developing writing skills. A narrative piece of writing could be started by the whole class and student could go in and add content to the story but they could also go in and add details, strong verbs, adjectives or any thing that may be needed to make the piece of writing stronger. Guth (2007) states,

When editing a public wiki, students must critically read what has already been written by people they do not know, paying close attention to content, structure and style in order to see what needs to be modified or added and how to write contributions. 

Teachers are wanting their students to read and think critically. Contributing content to a wiki allows for this important skill to develop. This is an area where I am also working towards.

Being able to see the changes as the administrator allow you insight into where students made changes, you could then go back and ask them why those particular decisions were made.

The more I play with this tool, the more I am beginning to see how it could be used for collaboration. I think my grade two's will be learning to add to a wiki very soon.

Guth, S. (2007). Wikis in education: is public better?. WikiSym ’07. doi: 10.1145/1296951.1296958

Wiki's Will Win You Wover!

Do you like the catchy title? I thought it was clever. I think it's how I feel about wiki's these days. When I first thought about wiki's and what their purpose was, I envisioned them being a lot like blogs but more collaborative. In fact, they are much different. Blogs are a way to journal about our thoughts and understandings then people respond back with their opinion or views. After reading, Sarah Guth's (2007) paper Wiki's In Education: Is Public Better, I'm beginning to see that wiki's are a Web 2.0 tool used to build collaboration between those who are participating in the wiki and the topic they are writing about. They are also an opportunity to publish quality pieces of writing.  

Berger & Trexler (2010) explain a Wiki's  

"focus as authoring content, rather than just downloading existing content on the Web. Student authors select, evaluate, write, revise, edit, and publish information and ideas to their collaborative wiki Web site." 

This Web 2.0 tool then becomes increasingly important in helping students and myself learn to share, collaborate, and deal with editing others work and have my own edited. Guth also reported that the students in the study also had the same difficulty as I am having,

both a challenge and a benefit of using wikis in education is helping students let go of individual ownership. (p. 62) 

I am learning to do this since one of our first discussions in this course from our textbook, The Socially Networked Classroom by William Kist. I wondered what I had to share but I am learning that everyone has something to share, even myself.  Guth also reported, the students  

"still felt strong ownership for their personal contributions and had difficulty editing each other's work/" (p. 64)

I know this is an issue I will be struggling with. I think, who am I to be editing someone else's work. Again, it's going to take time to leave this mindset. 

I had two goals in mind for my proposal. One was to create a Wiki (at the time I wasn't sure of why or what it would entail) and to add to the Daily 5 Wiki of our Friday night Twitter chats. I successfully added some of my word work activities to the wiki. If you would like to see the post I did on how easy it was to add content to this wiki click here. This particular wiki is not one in true sense of what Berger and Trexler (2010) stated a wiki should be. Instead, it is a place for teachers to share their ideas, resources and insights into this program. I added an introduction of myself so I could get use to using the editing function of a wiki. This is still a very new Web 2.0 tool for me and I know I am not using it to it's full potential but with all new things, experimentation is important to understanding what to do and how to use it.

I knew I wanted to create a wiki of my own, I have to create something in order to know how it works, but at the time of the proposal I struggled with knowing what was the wiki for. The more I read and looked at other wiki's I realized I wanted to have a place to share what I do. Several people ask for power points, documents, images, etc from me after I finish a presentation or from a post I may add to my other blog. For now my wiki will be a place to house all of these items. I will leave the wiki open so others can add to it. I feel the more I use it and give others the address, the more others will feel comfortable collaborating on it. A problem I know I am going to encounter is having people contribute and become members. Why would they want to? At this time I am unsure of how to answer this question. Perhaps with more use and putting out my content on Twitter others will find the value in collaborating on the wiki and adding their own work.

References

Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Guth, S. (2007). Wikis in education: is public better?. WikiSym ’07. doi: 10.1145/1296951.1296958

Out of Touch but Now I'm Back

Image courtesy of ECEC Council

Hello Everyone!

My apologies for not being around in the blogging world. This past three weeks I've been CRAZY busy! Last week I completed report cards, created agenda's for meeting, made three days worth of sub plans so I could attend meetings and the ECEC Conference in Kananaskis. What a wonderful location to have a conference. Not that I saw any of the gorgeous scenery because I was busy learning about PLAY, project based learning, and math. 

I promise to post more this week. In between all of my travels and work, I've found sometime to work on various Web 2.0 tools. I am looking forward to sharing what I learn. 

Come back and see what I've learned.

What's the Fuss Over Flickr?

Photo courtesy of flickr‑rss.jpg

What's the draw to Flickr? In any free time I've had I've been returning to Flickr and doing some experimenting and playing around. I've added a profile picture that's actually me and not a picture of my dogs. I've thought about why I'm choosing to use different photo's. I think they need to all be the same, especially after meeting @kathycassidy this weekend. She said, "You don't look anything like your picture!" Hmm!! Is that sign? I feel quite important after getting my own Flickr URL. I'll be testing this out soon enough. I chose to add some contacts from my Facebook page. I think I'll add some from my Google addresses as well. It appears I do not have a lot of contacts who use Flickr. I might have to send out emails to ask them to join. 

I uploaded a set of photos and then posted them to Twitter. Nothing happened! No comments and no views. I think it's because I'm new to photo sharing and perhaps my photos didn't have any meaning. Note to self they must be meaningful. 

As I mentioned earlier, I had the pleasure of meeting @kathycassidy at the ECEC Saskatchewan Conference in Saskatoon. I attended her Digitial Portfolio's session and her Rebooting the 3R's session. We were talking and I commented on how I liked the slideshow of her students before her presentation. She told me they were on her Flickr account. I instantly went to her sight. When I was browsing her photos/site it appears she uploads her images from her classroom, individual and sets, and then she must send out her URL so others can view them. Her sets have several views. Mental note on this point. I've added her as a contact so that I can take a look at more of her site to see how she organizes and shares her photos. I'm going to subscribe to her RSS Flickr account so that I can use her account as a resource. I'm glad I found this. Now I'm wondering who else may be on Flickr that I know from Twitter. When I was first investigating this site I was wondering what the point was. After finding her site and using her Flickr account of an example, I'm far more interested in investigating it further.

How can I integrate this into a primary classroom? First of all, any photos I add to my iPhoto that have classroom content, I will upload them to Flickr. This way I can share them with parents and I don't have to always post them on the blog. I will be more conscious of the photos I take. What is the intent, purpose, or goal of the photo? Why do I want to share it? Does it show growth or learning over time? I can also have kids comment on a certain photos to build their literacy skill. 

When I first started using Flickr I wasn't all that excited about it. But after seeing a primary example I can start to see the possibilities of using it in school and for my own personal use. Flickr appears to be multi-layered, which is scarey and exciting all at the same time. I have lots more to learn.

Current Event #1 - Technology in school not always best

Thank you to all for your comments. I am going to just add a couple of notes because I miss read the instructions and I didn't include a brief description of why I chose this article.

Technology in school not always best, study says

The headline initially attracted me to the article because I was starting my master's on-line and I'm interested in using technology in the classroom.  Was it referring to K-12 classrooms or University type courses? The article is making reference to digital natives and how savy they are but yet young people are not attracted to on-line learning. So why is this? The article goes on to explain that perhaps it's not about them being tech savy but about what fits each individual person and how they choose to learn. Kind of the one size doesn't fit all approach doesn't always work. We've known this for some time in education, but do we all choose to follow this train of thought?

For some of us, the traditional classroom setting works and for others they learn by doing while others learn through other mediums. What I find most interesting now after having just listened to the podcasts Joanne posted, is perhaps the "digital natives" are not as tech savy as we thought they were. If they are not, then this explains why more students prefer lecture type classes, are more statisfied and prefer face to face classes than high-tech classrooms.
Now I'm interested in this myth of why the "younger generation" may not be as digitally connected as we originally thought they were.

I've got some searching to do for my next current events post.

April