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Wiki woes

October 21, 2008 By 2 Comments

This semester I have had to abandon most of my wiki-based activities with my students, which has been disappointing and frustrating. Just to keep things fresh, I had switched to using a WetPaint wiki this year (last year I used Wikispaces). A few things went wrong with that.

1. Public Education Security

I hadn’t counted on the increased level of security that schools in our Board would implement this year. Many sites that I have used are now banned, and WetPaint’s “edit” function seems to fall under that. I can work to get it unblocked, but it’s a long, complicated process that I just haven’t gotten around to.

2. No Trial Run

I don’t really have an opportunity to fully test new systems before going live with my class. 30 students jumping onto a system, all with different user names, passwords, and privileges, is a lot different than me as a teacher working on it. It would have been nice to know about the WetPaint issue before the semester started, but it wasn’t something I was able to do.

3. No Flex Time

The lab at our school is booked solid. Once I recognized the issue with WetPaint, I could have perhaps taken the class in the next day, having moved their work to a Wikispaces wiki. Alas, there aren’t any spare minutes available for the lab, so mistakes really couldn’t be recovered.

I’m sure that there must be some lessons here for me: Maybe I should have a couple of wikis ready to go before the semester starts so that I can quickly switch to a working system if I need to? It seems like a lot of work.

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Image by Justin Marty

Filed Under: 21st Century Skills Tagged With: , , ,

Oh, Wicked Wikipedia

April 17, 2008 By 2 Comments

I was very proud of myself. I thought that I had actually contributed something to the world’s encyclopedia — even to the greater good.

Was I wrong? Did I commit some unforgivable sin?

In the second week of March, I spent the better part of two days researching and writing a Wikipedia article about my old hometown, the quaint hamlet of Hawkesville. I interviewed residents. I took dozens of pictures, of which I selected only one to include. I read a book and personal correspondence. Not bad, I thought.

I wrote an entry, edited it and uploaded it. Done. And done well, I thought. Friends and family reviewed it over the following week. Everyone was happy to see Hawkesville on the virtual map.

I thought I did alright.

Today, a month later, I was preparing a brief lesson for students in which I wanted to promote Wikipedia as an online resource. I was reminded of my work on the Hawkesville article and thought I’d take a look at it again.

It was gone.

Not edited. Not trimmed. Erased.

I logged into Wikipedia. My article had been deleted because, apparently, somebody thought that the town should have been discussed under its broader municipality of Wellesley.

Okay. So I probably broke someone’s Wikipedia rule. I am sorry. But it just seems in poor taste to obliterate someone else’s work without even chatting with them first about how it might be better suited elsewhere.

Today, I see ahead of me the insurmountable task of working with the collective. Visions, and revisions, and revisions.

Filed Under: On My Mind Tagged With: ,

Lesson Debrief: Virtual Literature Circles (Part 3)

April 6, 2008 By Leave a Comment

We’re done this experiment in taking literature circles online. We’ve learned lots about wiki-based collaboration in these two weeks, and believe that we’ll try something like this again.

What I Like

  • I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: this has been especially worthwhile because of the opportunity to collaborate with a colleague. I really enjoy the opportunity to exchange ideas and proofread each other’s work. It created better assignments and a better unit test for the students.
  • Also, it was great to see a handful of the students really exploring the wiki technology… Finding out what it was capable of and where their limitations were.

What Needs Work

  • The in-class, face-to-face discussion has not carried over to our online classroom space very well. In class, students are interested in discussing their chosen novels and have some lively conversations about them but the wiki has not harnessed that discussion very well. This could be because it is designed more for facilitating collaboration than for fostering discussion. The students were very reluctant to give that one extra click of the mouse to go to the discussion page, let alone the added mouse-clicks for reading previous posts and for typing their own.
  • The fact that their peers can see their work has not encouraged many students to reconsider the quality of their final work. I had hoped that more peer collaboration would enable them to see their work in a new light, but for many, they remain content with submitting minimal work. I think that perhaps if I spend more time in helping students learn how to use the wiki effectively that the positive peer pressure I’m hoping for might increase.

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Related Posts

Lesson Debrief:  Virtual Literature Circles (Part 1)

Lesson Debrief:  Virtual Literature Circles (Part 2)

Filed Under: Lessons Tagged With: , , ,

Lesson Debrief: Virtual Literature Circles (Part 1)

March 4, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I’m technically cheating here, doing a series of lesson debriefs on what is really a unit. But since I’m making the rules, I imagine that breaking them is allowed.

I’ve mentioned before that I am collaborating with a colleague in a wiki-based, cross-class literature circle experiment. The long descriptor there gives a pretty good sense of just how complicated it feels sometimes. We’ve decided to have each class break into literature circles and choose to read either The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravtiz or The Catcher in the Rye. Our in-class literature circles are quite standard, with members assuming roles and completing related handouts.

Each in-class literature circle is teamed up with another lit circle from my colleague’s class to form a larger virtual literature circle. That virtual team is expected to summarize and extend their respective discussions online via our class wiki. The end goal of all of this is for students to compile a detailed portfolio of the novel that they can use to create a book trailer.

What I like

  • I enjoy collaborating with a colleague in my department. While I appreciate the connections I make online, and the learning that happens here, it’s great to be trying out ideas with someone who I can visit with in the hall.
  • I’ve honed the literature circle role sheets that I use and they seem to be working well for this grade level. Students are using them to get a fresh perspective on the novel.
  • The two novels – Catcher and Duddy Kravtiz – work really well together. Reading them, I frequently laugh out loud.

What needs work

  • When a circle is missing students, then the discussion aspect suffers. This is a unit that is particularly hampered by absenteeism, which is a bit odd since so much of it is being taken online. It seems that if there isn’t some face-to-face conversation immediately following a reading, then it’s more challenging for students to summarize ideas and extend them online.
  • Although a wiki is a straightforward tool, I should have had students complete more activities with it prior to beginning this fairly intensive unit. Some students are still learning how to work with the technology rather than spending their time on content. (Having said that, working with the technology is one of the goals here, so I’m pleased to see progress.)

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Related
Lesson Debrief: Virtual Literature Circles (Part 2)

Lesson Debrief:  Virtual Literature Circles (Part 3)

Filed Under: 21st Century Skills, Lessons Tagged With: , , ,