I thought that I had tapped the resources of the Wiki by creating a class page for students and parents this year. But after reading about the way that Wikis can be used, I find that I am only scratching the surface of this amazing tool. The word “wiki” is not an acronym. It is a Hawaiian word meaning “quick”. The name has now entered the Internet lexicon, along with other Web-based terms such as blogs and podcasts. The Wiki was begun by computer programmers so that they could create a knowledge base and collaborate efficiently on projects. Wikipedia has made them very popular sources of information from world-wide populations. The Wiki provides the community or school with a meeting place to exchange and compile information. It differs from a traditional website where the designer controls all the content and the communication is one way. There are concerns that information can be deleted or added erroneously. In actuality this happens very seldom. There are a host of Wikis on many areas of interest—see the Wiki Index at http://www.wikiindex.com Wikis have become mini libraries of information and a way for all people to share their personal experiences and knowledge. They encourage collaboration, open communication, and creativity in designing dynamic content.
Wikis have enormous potential for supporting media specialist/teacher collaboration. Librarians use it to create and maintain research guides—subject guides or pathfinders. Keyword searching can take users to related resources (databases and catalogs). Good organization is essential to creating a dynamic Wiki. Librarians must take opportunity to promote the Wiki well in order for people to get used to using the new technology. There are excellent Wikis online that contain banks of web sites on academic subjects, homework help, research databases, college and career information, links to activities and events at the high school, and cultural and commemorative resources. Some librarians put their own tech tips on the home page of the Wikis so that students have no trouble using the databases provided. Other librarians link the Wiki to their Google library, OPAC, and blogs to bring the media center to everyone’s computer!
There are so many applications for classroom and media center use of Wikis! Many are being used are to set up a place to generate ideas and collaboration for Science Fair Projects. This allows everyone a place to meet and discuss even though they may be separated by distance or scheduling constraints. The Wiki serves to document the discussion and provide links to the resources that are found. Another application that is very relevant to teacher needs is found in creating a Student Portfolio Wiki. In this way, all teachers who work with the same students have access to and a place to share their own information on the student. Another idea was for professionals to keep a Wiki to organize their own resources and documents for their classroom, college course, or media center. Literature Circle Wikis are another idea for the teacher. The pages of the Wiki can be designated books that the students are reading. Discussion can be facilitated and document through the Wiki format. Amy Bowllan (School Library Journal) describes how she could not find online resources for the book that she was reading with her class. So she created a Wiki where she and the students could create their own resources. The students gathered web links for the setting of the story (Kenya), found recipes for foods from the area, posted them and made them to bring in to the classroom to share. Of course this would be a fabulous way to incorporate writing (blogging) about the theme or setting.
The best idea that I found for Wikis is to use it to collaborate with other teachers. I team teach with another teacher and we each have created our own Wikis this year as communication tools. It would be great to combine the two to make it easier for the students and parents of both classes to find our resources and communicate with each other. We could also share in the work of organizing and maintaining our Wiki. The applications of this tool go on and on!
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Linda, I like your ideas for using wikis. The uses are almost limitless and I foresee them being used more and more in education. I know teachers that teach on teams that would find wikis to be very useful. I can also see where a teacher could use a wiki to guide students through a research paper.
ReplyDeleteI think that the main problem that I encounter with wikis is that they are blocked in my school system. This makes me think of the debate on the Pros and Cons of internet filtering. For some reason, my system has wikis blocked, which has frustrated a lot of teachers that want to take advantage of this technology. Numerous complaints have not resolved this problem, but teachers are moving forward with using wikis.
One teacher that I work with has created a wiki for her gifted classes that contains all class notes and assignments for a given week. This allows her students to access the work when they are at home sick or when they have missed class for some reason. She told me that it has made her life a lot easier and that her students are getting their missed assignment turned in sooner.
Linda,
ReplyDeleteI loved all of the ideas that you presented. I especially loved your idea about literature circles. I do those with my third graders, but what a great way to get them more excited about what they are doing. They love doing anything with the computer, so this would be a great way to get them fired up.
Like Eddy mentioned and like we discussed in-depth last week, many wikis are blocked by the filters. This seems to be an issue that I am finding with these newer technologies because they are unfamiliar to people. I think education teachers and parents about things such as wikis is an important step to take. Just like I have been unfamiliar with using wikis, I imagine most parents are too. Teaching them about wikis and showing them all of the wonderful things that can be done with them will get them on board with using them. Inevitably, this will make our lives so much easier.
Amanda Fincher :)
I too liked your suggestion about using a wiki for literature circles. The fourth and fifth grade teachers at my school love to do literature circles but can’t seem to find the time to do them collectively as a class. This would be a good way for everyone to participate and share in the literature circle without having a set date and time to have the actual event. It would also give students good practice in response to literature which is a writing standard in the GPS.
ReplyDeleteI teach the 2nd grade and would love to use wikis in my class. I’m somewhat leary about allowing my 2nd graders to have unmonitored access to them. I am thinking I can use wikis as pathfinders for them. I’m also thinking that I could use wikis as a “look what we’ve been reading” resource for good books for students. Does anyone have any other suggestions for using wiki’s for lower grades? If so, please send them my way