(Just for fun you might want to check out the wicked witch wiki:
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Wicked_Witch_of_the_West)
There are an overwhelming number of places in which to participate. In fact, so many just for the library links in my Web 2.0 course, that I was close to tears wondering how one could ever keep up with all of it AND be a full time teacher librarian with all of its demands.
I'm starting to feel like if I can't know and do it ALL, then I am failing my students. Yes, the stress of trying to do it all and be it all could turn me into a Wiki'd witch.It's all about collaboration, for the most part. The idea of a wiki is for a group of people to work together on a project. Schweder & Wissick (2009) present the definition that "a wiki is a collaborative Web site whose content can be edited by anyone who has access to it" (p.57). With such collaboration in information building and sharing, "everyone together is smarter than anyone alone" (Richardson, 2009, p.57). Wikis certainly take the 'two heads are better than one' saying further and Wikipedia is the greatest example of this. We are learning to "operate in a world where the creation of knowledge and information is more and more becoming a group effort" (Richardson, 2009, p.69).
This interactive group effort is exactly what Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, envisioned it to be. He "wanted the web to be what I call an interactive space where everybody can edit" (Lamb, 2004) and to be more than interactive by simply being able to 'click' on a button or link. The use of Web2.0 tools and services make the interactive reality possible.
Sometimes wikis are used as repositories for links to great resources on a topic as some virtual library sites have done (including my own!). These wikis can still be collaborative in that students and teachers can add their own fabulous links and ideas to the site.
One of the best sites from the Web2.0 course links is WebTools4u2use http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/Webtools4U2Use It is a veritable storehouse of links, ideas, tutorials and examples of new technologies to use in education and life in general. It's incredibly well laid out in a clutter free and easy to follow format. It will take me another lifetime to explore it all but I love what I've seen there already.
Another great link from the course was to a YouTube video on Learning to Change http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahTKdEUAPk
This was a good one for me to see because I feel like an old dog trying to learn new tricks with Web2.0 tools, and fumbling my way around understanding how they work. I guess you could say that I am 'old school' taught and tend to follow that method in my teaching. I know that I have to change my dated ways and I'm slowly learning more about just how I can do that. The video made a point that really hit home for me in that students are experiencing more stimulating learning outside of the classroom than they are in the classroom, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that schools ban or restrict the new technologies that students are using such as YouTube, email, or Facebook. As I am discovering, these are critical components to student learning and we truly do need to incorporate them into our curricula. One of the first things I want to do when school starts up again is to make sure that students can access whatever Web2.0 tools they use so that they can bring that learning into the school.
I would also like to have a discussion with each of my classes to find out just how and when they use these technologies (old school method, I know. I like the personal interaction.) Maybe I need to set up a wiki for them to contribute to...that would make more sense to them...
Why use wikis in education?
Schweder & Wissick (2009) have determined that educators use wikis in four categories: collaboration - for when people can't meet face to face, or to allow more reserved individuals to have a say; sharing - information and resources to support teaching; organisation - a means to organise and share resources; and instruction - posting homework assignments, helpful links or presentations to assist students.
Wikis have many advantages. According to Imperatore (2009) wikis encourage participation by students who may be too shy to speak up in class; wikis are accessible any time; students pay more attention to detail if they know their work will be published online; students feel a sense of ownership in their learning; and wikis strengthen reading and writing skills. Lamb (2004) adds that wikis can teach students "network literacy: writing in a distributed, collaborative environment".
Wiki users don't need to know html or css in order to create or edit pages.
Wikis don't require special hosting by a server.
Wiki Ideas in School
So how can we create and use wikis (and everything else) in the classroom to enhance and promote learning?
First of all, find a wiki service to use. Wikispaces.com, PBworks.com and Wetpaint.com are probably the most popular.
When my colleague and I were first thinking about a wiki space to keep track of all the great sites that we come across for our students, we looked at wikispaces.com and PBwiki.com (now PBworks.com). At the time, we both really like wikispaces for its simplicity and felt that it was a bit more intuitive and easy to use than PBwiki and that's where we've started. In the meantime, our IT department has been redeveloping the school website and various subject areas and specialties, including the library, will have their own linked wiki spaces through PBwiki. We are now in the process of transferring our links and thankfully, it is an easy task! Until we complete the job, our current links are listed at http://librarianz.wikispaces.com
Once a service has been chosen, Lamb (2004) recommends that newcomers start simply, as my colleague and I did. Use a wiki for students to brainstorm ideas on a topic, compile lists of information, or create a collection of useful links. Imperatore (2009) suggests using a wiki as a repository for class documents as a starting point, but also suggests more advanced uses such as keeping track of student projects wherein each project has its own page, or to develop a whole-class project to create a study guide, manual or glossary. Wikis can be used for novel studies, poetry collections, science units, research logs, and more; the possibilities truly are unlimited.
Kahn (2009) outlines his use of a 4th grade class wiki, "Inventa-pedia", about inventors and inventions. Kahn started with the basic wiki setup and taught students wiki text editing. Students posted one or two sentences about their inventor/invention and later were able to add photos or links. Students were so excited about the project that they added more than their required three postings, and were working on it in the evenings, mornings and even during their 'free choice' time. The result was a very comprehensive A-Z Inventa-pedia!
I worked with grade 6 classes last year on inventors and inventions. I found some useful links for them to use, but as the students started to explore, they found many more sites that were good. For similar and future research projects like this, I want to continue to add to our links collections, but also to experiment with using a wiki to create our own type of "-pedia" for the topic and to use separate pages for pair or group work in a specific area.
As both student and teacher users become more familiar and comfortable with wikis, they can extend their contributions by adding photos, drawings, charts, slide shows or videos to enhance the information.
Wiki Concerns
With wikis being a wide-open, accessible-to-all format, there are concerns about unwanted users creating or editing information. Users can be invited by the teacher to participate in the wiki so that only invitees have access. Depending on the wiki service, students can establish accounts with usernames and passwords to log in to a class wiki.
Intellectual property rights are also an issue with blogs and wikis, where "content 'cloning' across wikis--sometimes referred to in non-wiki circles as 'plagiarism'--is often acceptable" (Lamb, 2004). Lamb outlines three common ways to approach this. One option is to apply a policy where all contributors to a wiki space surrender copyright. Another is to maintain copyright, but allow modifications to the work, only if the original author accepts modifications. And the third option is to allow anyone to use a work and create subsequent works, provided that the original contributor is acknowledged and maintains copyright. There is no one 'right' answer for this as the territory is still so new.
More and more I can see the great ways in which wikis can be used in the classroom, and beyond. Yes, we certainly aren't in Kansas anymore Toto!
References
Imperatore, C. (2009). Wikis and Blogs: Your Keys to Student Collaboration & Engagement. Techniques 84(3), pp.30-31. Retrieved July 26, 2009 from ProQuest Education Journals database.
Kahn, S. (2009). Wonderful Wikis and Internet Forums. Science and Children 46(9), pp.27-31. Retrieved July 26, 2009 from ProQuest Education Journals database.
Lamb, B. (2004). Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not. EDUCAUSE Review 39(5), pp.36-48. Retrieved July 26, 2009 from ProQuest Education Journals database.
Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Schweder, W. & Wissick, C.A. (2009). Content Area Applications: The Power of Wikis.
Journal of Special Education Technology 24(1), pp.57-60. Retrieved July 26, 2009 from ProQuest Education Journals database.
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