WIKI – A classroom from…anywhere!

“A social website is a type of website with pages that anyone can edit and contribute to, including text, photos, videos, polls, and more. Because many people can contribute to a social website, the content grows quickly as a result of collaboration. Users can easily and quickly build on the work of others by adding new content—and even new pages—to the social website.” (Wetpaint, 2009).

I have made a WIKI site with Wetpaint. Take at look at my wildlife adventures site at:

http://wildlifeadventure.wetpaint.com/

The Wiki I have created is intended for a year one class to collaboratively use to show parents the learning journey. It would be used on a smart board and replace butchers paper diaries and KWL’s and whiteboard discussions. We would upload pictures of excursions, experiments and students work. By doing this parents are able to access this site wherever they are and leave comments and questions and feel they are a part of the journey. I also like the fact that Wikis can be invite only access and you can control what the parents can contribute to. This creates a safe space for families online.

After much trolling around the Wetpaint site, I found a great page of ideas and resource. Here is what I found:

Wikis in the classroom:
Group projects: Students work together in one place to research, outline, draft, and edit projects within the wiki
Assignments: Post homework, course materials, study guides, and more.
Resource Collections: Organize articles, websites, videos, and other resources for students
Peer Review: Post questions for student brainstorming, or have students post papers for peer feedback
Group FAQ: Students and/or teachers post and respond to questions on a given topic
Parent Involvement: Give parents a chance to be a part of the classroom and stay up to date on classroom news and events
Online Newspaper: Create a student-published online newspaper
(Wetpaint, 2009).

It also goes on to provide templates for a classroom site and for group projects. As well as having a forum for educators to share the ways they have used Wikis in their classroom. What a resource! Wetpaint has made it so easy for the use of Wikis in the classroom.

Engagement theory can be seen in this technology tool – Relate – Create – Donate. Wikis are a collaborative tool which emphasizes team efforts that involve communication, planning, management and social skills (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999). Wikis are a great way to work together from outside the classroom and even across continents. Prensky (2001) argues that digital natives are more connected than other generations through technologies such as mobile phones, email and chat lines. Communication is a much more connected and global experience for this generation than has been possible in the past.

Til next time,

Cheers,

Bec



Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory:. Retrieved August 15th, 2009, from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-5.

Wetpaint. (2009). Wikis in the Classroom. Retrieved August 17th, 2009, from: http://www.wetpaint.com/category/Education--Wikis-In-The-Classroom