Article: http://www.futurechanges.org/2008/04/10/interview-the-state-of-wikis-in-education/
There are many benefits to using Wikis including interactive group activities and the promotion of collaboration. In an educational setting, students can use Wikis as a learning tool in order to share ideas, respond to others, and demonstrate understanding of content. Wikis can also improve the group dynamic by allowing multiple individuals to collaborate on a given document remotely. In “The State if Wikis in Education”, the blogger says that “teachers like (Wikis) because they can interact with students throughout the course of a project or assignment”. Teachers interacting with their students via a Wiki will allow the teacher to build a healthy and constant learning environment. Wikis also allow teachers to guide their students through the web. In this blog entry cited above, they also mention that “some schools, courses, and teachers are doing incredible things with wikis, but they’re not yet in widespread use everywhere”. As good educators, I feel we need to be knowledgeable of all the technological tools available to us and be able to use them to their full potential. Our ultimate goal is to guide our students with the most appropriate and up-to-date materials in order to be successful inside and outside of the classroom. In addition, teachers must keep in mind that all students learn differently. Different can mean many different things such as, knowledge level, aptitude, and home environment. Wikis give students an opportunity to learn and help each other through interaction. Most of the time there are 3 levels of students in the classroom. Using Wikis is a great way to bring students together from different level of performance in order to scaffold or peer to peer teaching. Wikis can allow teachers to use different methods in order to catch every student’s attention. Teachers will have no problem connecting with their students through Wikis as they can be fun and not intimidating to those un-savvy technology users. Wikis might sound a little more complicated than blogging or instant messenger, but in actuality anyone with the basic knowledge of using a computer can create, build, and maintain a Wiki. The author of “the State of Wikis in Education” said that using Wikis is just as easy as writing an e-mail. Ultimately, once teachers learn about Wikis and the potential benefits of using them in the classroom, they can become collaborative partners with students in the constructivist classroom.
It's great that you point out how wikis may help a class since there are so many different types of students - different styles of learning and different levels.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, wikis may be used to help differentiate a lesson but to further reach a diverse group of students, I would suggest giving other options besides the wiki.
Although, I love the idea and the potential of the wiki, I do not believe this means we as educators should just drop other learning tools we used before (writing research papers, making posters, creating power points, etc.). Perhaps we could supply them with the wiki tool and teach them how to use it then give it as an option in projects? Or perhaps we could incorporate the older style learning tools to be represented in their wikis? Something to think about.
I agree that wikis can create a "many heads are better than one" experience in a classroom. I am excited to create one to spawn a classroom of enthusiastic eight-year-old word munchers.
ReplyDeleteBut I also agree with Rachel that it is folly to abandon the three-dimensional, real space, real time, real matter REALITY--particularly for elementary-age children.
My reasoning is this: Physiologically speaking, we are still living in hunter-gatherer mind/bodies-- that need to be developed through the handling of the environment to solve problems.
I take pride in my ability to fix and make things: to draw a diagram, to untangle a chain, to prune a tree, to fix a lamp, to cook a meal, to make Origami.
This ability is being lost on our children. Ironically, I am not seeing a commensurate increase in language development or vocabulary. I even hear reports that interviewees are using texting language on their job applications.
I am not a reactionary. I embrace technology. But it is not a replacement for what is developmentally appropriate for children--talking about, touching and making real things in the actual world. The concrete must precede the pictorial and the pictorial precedes the abstract. This is how our mind/bodies are.
I just found we read the same article, and I go some new ideas from you blog. you mention students learn differently, and they may in different levels in the same classroom.Blogs make them communicate with each other in many different subjects. However working in a wiki's enviornment inergrate them for a project that may decrease the gap between different levels.
ReplyDeleteOf course, using as many as different educational tools will help to motivate and give choice to all students. Other excellent tools can be also used in order to try different methods as intentional teachers. But it doesn’t mean real life classroom settings should be abandoned. Real time classrooms are just as important as or even more than virtual settings. In order to explain our students how to use Wikis should be taken place in the classroom setting. If students have questions, that’s the time to ask and understand better how to use different educational tools. At the end, as educators we should be trying different methods in order to give access to every student and guide them to experience different settings.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with your peer to peer learning when it comes to wikis. students are able to learn from each other differently, opposed to the traditional way which obviously needs change. Though i strongly believe that teachers do need to create an effective way to manage the information that is used in the wiki pages. somet times the students can get a little out of hand with the information that they put on there. might it be true information or false. but overall its a very powerful tool that can fuel learning.
ReplyDeleteYes! students helping each other helps them to understand better and also when they are learning from one another is fun! That's the reason why I believe teachers must try different tools in order to give them choice.
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