Travel Diaries of a Web 2.0 Newbie

I liked the CoolCat blog and found both it and the post about how she uses the Wiki in the classroom very useful. They provided a bit of structure and definition to what seemed at times to be a dauntingly large black hole: “Go – use a wiki with your students!”

I also found the Teacher’s First Wiki Walkthrough resource very useful for helping me start to formulate a plan for using a wiki with some of my classes e.g. making a glossary of terms with definitions and illustrations, but using links to further information pages in order to keep the definitions short. This would be the sort of thing that is easily accessible to all year groups and (I imagine) easy to set up. Other ideas mentioned, such as study guide wikis and FAQs, would also be valuable.

While looking at other wikis, I was a little disturbed by the lack of content on some. It’s probably like homework – it can get done with a minimum of effort. Just because you change the medium, you don’t automatically change the work ethic of some of your students.

Reich Chemistry – some of the sections from the best examples of wiki use 2007 gave me some good hints for how to get a wiki of the standard I had envisaged e.g. – giving detailed “How to…” instructions; providing a FAQ section; and giving a staggered series of deadlines, rather than one final deadline; all links out worked; and it was well-organised and clearly laid-out. The standard of work on this wiki was very high: the work was all properly referenced with a bibliography and they had even managed to throw in some collaborative work across the curriculum as well in the form of the Art project posters:

Roentgen by Brianna Anthony (http://reich-chemistry.wikispaces.com/Honors+Art+Pieces)

The teacher had put a Powerpoint presentation covering the content of the work after the wiki had been done, probably to ensure that no information is missed out. I suspect that this is possibly a teacher covering themself, as most of the learning seems to have been done through composing the wiki pages.
Reaction Teaching wikis – great idea – this is completely the way I learn and I am impressed with the clarity and detail of these pages.

FHS Wolves Den – initially found this to appear too cluttered with a bit of information overload, but it was late at night (I did like the Saturday Night Live video clips though). I then went back and gave it a second chance – I liked the idea of nominating class scribes to post the day’s notes, so there is a complete set of notes there to which other students can add or edit – no teacher effort here, but a valuable resource.

Maths 12V Outcomes Portfolio – another excellent example of a wiki used for revision purposes – very thorough and detailed; some broken links which annoys me – I can see that you need to work to keep a wiki up-to-date. Glad to see students reminded about crediting sources for images and spelling mistakes – standards don’t have to slip to texting language, as you find in some pages. Liked the fact that creativity wasn’t stifled, even on a systematic project like this – see the giant rabid mongoose saga.

Miss Baker’s Biology Class wiki – seemed underdeveloped in comparison to others e.g. very small glossary of words. Maybe this is at an earlier stage in the creation process. Liked the projects that were used – standard of presentation not as high as e.g. Maths 12V Outcomes wiki. Using it to cover points for test revision could be an effective resource.

Overall I feel quite encouraged and almost relieved to be finally thinking about the skin and bones of starting with wikis. I can see possibilities for using wikis effectively with the range of ages that I teach and have a more concrete idea of the standard I expect for the final products.