Technology Terror

Technology Terror

Does the thought of unknown technology make you nervous?  It does me.  As embarrassing as it is for me to admit, technology isn’t one of my strong points.  I realize the importance of technology and I’m willing to learn, but there is SO much I don’t know.  The mere word “technology” can make me reach for paper bag before the hyperventilation begins!  My tech savvy friend, has assured me countless times that I “can’t tear it up,” but my mind plays over a scene of complete demolition much like that of a roadrunner trap “skillfully” set by a coyote. 

Beginning the SLM certification, has pushed me beyond my comfort zone and further into the technology realm.  I must admit, I’m loving learning more technology and I’m finding ways to incorporate it into the classroom.  Wikis have become, without a doubt, one of my favorites. 

Educause Learning Initiative (www.educause.edu/eli) outlines seven things a user needs to know about wikis.  To begin, “a wiki is a Web page that can be viewed and modified by anybody with a Web browser and access to the Internet.”  Through the creation of a wiki, visitors can make changes to the content of the site.  While this has the potential for problem in that users can accidently (or purposefully) delete content entered by other users or insert incorrect content to the site.  Despite the potential for problem, wikis still promote a sense of collaboration and teamwork.  Through wikis, users can add sounds, movies, pictures, and links as well as text.  Users can also use wikis to create presentations and digital stories.

It is really simple to create a Wiki.  As a UWG student, we have access to a wiki account, but users can also go to www.wikispaces.com to create an account.  It’s simple to create an account by following the steps on the website.

In an article by the Center for Teaching by Vanderbilt University, wikis are explained as “a collaborative tool that allows students to contribute to and modify one or more pages of course related materials.”  That is exactly how I first encountered Wikis.  When taking the Information Resources class we had a group assignment to create a Wiki.  After I overcame my apprehension, I found myself hooked.  For the purposes of the class, groups created wikis to be used as a resource for teaching the standards.  It was an amazing experience.  After our team settled on the standard and divided the workload, I found myself totally engrossed.  One group member volunteered to create the wiki and invited the remaining members of our group to join.  Once we joined we were able to go in and add pages to let the creativity begin.  We each had our own page to create, in addition to a title page and a bibliography/resource page in which we collaborated.  In creating the wiki, we were able to go in a make modifications and additions to the various pages making collaboration easy.  The further into the project I got -- collecting and compiling printed, online, and video sources -- made my head spin with the possibilities for future wikis. 

The experience with wiki in Information Resources led me to create another Wiki in my Instructional Design class.  For this class I had the assignment of creating a professional development training for teachers.  I turned to wiki for its simplicity and user friendliness to create a training module on how to use Kidblog.  This time, I was much more comfortable and created the module in its entirety independently.  Because of my familiarity from the previous assignment I was much more proficient – and because I was then the facilitator of the page I had more freedom to make changes to the pages design and layout which made me even more excited.  Without a doubt, these assignments let me catch a glimpse of the potential wikis have in the field of education. 

Now my teaching partner and I are collaborating on creating wikis for our second graders.  We want to teach our students how to gather research, but are apprehensive about what they may encounter if allowed to search independently.  We have filtering to keep out the inappropriate content, but we all know that occasionally things do find their way through.  Plus, our students are so young it’s hard for them to determine if they are looking at a reliable source.  That’s where we are putting wikis to use.  We are in the process of creating wikis for our science and social studies standards that will allow our students to explore appropriate resources that will be beneficial in helping them in learning about the standard and the research process.  Our current wiki is for the solar system and features a page for the sun and each of the planets.  The students will be able to go in and explore the sites we have chosen for them and they will feel like accomplished researchers.  Students could continue their research at home by accessing the wikis at home – giving parents insight to what is being studied at school.

This is a thought I want to keep in mind for when I become a media specialist.  I feel teachers would greatly appreciate being able to have wikis on different standards to use as a resource.  It would be great to have the teachers collaborate with the media specialist and add materials that are appropriate for the standards for everyone to use.

I’ve played with the idea of having my students create and collaborate on a wiki.  I believe it can be done, but with training and practice, and would be enjoyed by the students. The biggest obstacle for us to face – once the process has been taught – is the possibility of students accidently erasing the work of another student.  I don’t think my students would purposely delete another’s work, but accidents do happen – especially at this age.

In addition to having students and teachers involved with wikis for student instruction, wikis also have great potential for teacher training.  Just as I created the wiki for instructional design on how to use Kidblog, training sessions could be created for teachers on different topics of interest.  The potential for wikis in education seem to be limitless.

In my research on Wikis, I found lots of ideas and suggestions for using wikis in the classroom.  For those looking for ways to incorporate wikis in the classroom, www.TeachersFirst.com has lots of great ideas.  It’s a great resource I’d recommend for educators.

·         An annotated virtual library: listings and commentary on independent reading students have done throughout the year

·         Collaborative book reviews or author studies

·         An elementary class “encyclopedia” on a special topic, such as explorers or state history – to be continued and added to each year!

·         A virtual tour of your school as you study “our community” in elementary grades

·         A travelogue from a field trip or NON- field trip that the class would have liked to take as a culmination of a unit of study: Our (non) trip to the Capital and what we (wish) we saw.

·         Detailed and illustrated descriptions of scientific or governmental processes: how a bill becomes a law, how mountains form, etc.
A wiki “fan club” for you favorite author(s).

·         Family Twaditionwiki- elementary students share their family’s ways of preparing Thanksgiving dinner or celebrating birthdays (anonymously, of course) and compare them to practices in other cultures they read and learn about.

·         A Where is Wanda wiki: a wiki version of the ever-favorite Flat Stanley project. Have each Wanda host post on the wiki, including the picture they take with Wanda during her visit. Even better: keep an ongoing Google Earth placemarker file to add geographic visuals to Wanda’s wonderful wanderings as a link in the wiki. WOW! Where in the world IS Wiki Wanda?

·         A mock-debate between candidates, in wiki form (composed entirely based on research students have done on the candidate positions).

·         A collaborative project with students in another location or all over the world: A day in the life of an American/Japanese/French/Brazilian/Mexican family. (This one would require finding contacts in other locations, of course).

·         A collection of propaganda examples during a propaganda unit.

·         Detailed and illustrated descriptions of governmental processes: how a bill becomes a law, etc.

·         A “fan club” for your favorite president(s) or famous female(s).

·         A virtual tour of your school as you study “our community” in elementary grades.

·         A local history wiki, documenting historical buildings, events, and people within your community. Include interviews with those who can tell about events from the World War II era or the day the mill burned down, etc. Allow adult community members to add their input by signing up for “membership” in the wiki. This project could continue on for years and actually be a service to the community. Perhaps the area historical society would provide some assistance, if you can get them to think beyond the closed stacks of their protected collections!

·         A document-the-veterans wiki for those in your community who served in the military. Interview them and photograph them, including both their accounts and your students’ documentation and personal reflections on the interviews.

·         A travel brochure wiki: use wikis to “advertise” for different literary, historical, or cultural locations and time periods: Dickens’ London, fourteenth century in Italy in Verona and Mantua (Romeo and Juliet), The Oklahoma Territory, The Yukon during the Gold Rush, Ex-patriot Paris in the Twenties, etc.

·         A continuing story in which your class adds sentence using new vocabulary words and writes and adventure story in collaboration with the entire class. They will NEVER forget the meaning of the words as they read and re-read their story each time they visit to add. The story can be a single version or branch off into multiple versions and endings.

·         A collection of mythological allusions found in “real life” while studying Greek/Roman mythology: Ex. Mercury cars- why are they so named?

·         An online writer’s workshop or poetry workshop with suggested revisions from classmates. Start with drafts and collaborate. Make sure students use the notes tab to explain why they make changes.

·         Summary and discussion of a scene of a play, a poem, or even chapter by chapter of a novel, with groups taking responsibility for different portions

·         Literary analysis of actual text on the wiki- with links to explanations of literary devices, a glossary to explain vocabulary, etc. Try it with a scene from Shakespeare or a sonnet! Each student or group could be responsible for a portion, then ALL can edit and revise to improve the collaborative project. You will be amazed how much they will find and argue.

·         Collaborative book reviews or author studies

·         Creative projects, such as a script for a Shakespeare scene reset in the 21st century

·         A travel brochure wiki- use wikis to “advertise” for different literary, historical, or cultural locations and time periods: Dickens’ London, fourteenth century in Italy in Verona and Mantua (Romeo and Juliet), The Oklahoma Territory, The Yukon during the Gold Rush, Expatriate Paris in the Twenties, etc.

·         Character resume wiki: have literature classes create a resume wikis for characters in a novel or play you are reading. Both creativity and documented evidence from the literature are required (use notes to indicate the evidence from the text).

Resources

Seven things you should know about wikis. (2005). Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf.

Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers. (2015). Retrieved from www.teachersfirst.com by The Source for Learning, Inc.

Wikis. (2015). Retrieved from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/wikis/ by the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University.

Wikispaces (2015) retrieved from www.wikispaces.com by Tangient LLC.