wikis ... wikis ... wikis

While I was at an elementary school last week helping teachers with their new websites, one teacher showed me the ways she uses the wikis she has created. Christy used to teach in a school where there were 8 Kindergarten teachers, so it was not possible for all of them to have a common planning time. In order to find a way to collaborate, they used a wiki to share ideas and create lesson plans together. On this wiki, the theme of the week is posted at the top of the page. The headings on the page match the different parts of the lesson plans (guided practice, phonics, independent practice, small group, ...). Teachers in the group can fill in what activities, lessons, and materials they are using to accomplish the part of the lesson for that certain theme. For example, teachers can list what books they are using for the "read aloud" times that week. I think I would like being able to see what other teachers are doing and/or what materials/resources they are using to teach the same types of lessons. Just think of all the ideas and resources that can be shared this way.

Christy also uses a wiki for parents and other volunteers to sign up for times to help with the class. She posts days and times when she needs help (like Parent Readers on Fridays, Writing Center Help, ...), and then people (mostly parents ... she really encourages dads to volunteer) sign up by putting their names in the appropriate slots. If a volunteer signs up for a time and then realizes he or she can't make it, the name can be deleted so someone else can sign up. Christy also mentioned that she posts class supply needs on the wiki as well. There is also a space for parents to sign up to send items for "celebrations" (class parties). To promote the use of this wiki, any time a parent asks how they can help with the class or what items they can send to help, Christy asks for them to check the wiki. I thought this was a really way to do some parent-teacher communication. Part of a PTA Parent Night could be used to show parents how to access and participate with these wikis.

A couple of weeks ago, I overheard a high school teacher talking about a Social Studies wiki that she visits almost everyday. I found out the Social Studies Department for the school system set up a wiki. They told teachers to post to that wiki anytime they found a good lesson or materials to support a certain topic. The teacher I talked to is the only one who teaches Social Studies at her small school, so she was excited to be able to share and collaborate with people who taught the same subject. She said that she was always getting ideas from and adding ideas to the site.

I have used wikis in elementary school for a writing project and other research projects, but I had not thought about how wikis could be used in these ways to help teachers at any level.

Image created at Letteringdelights.com

The Write On WSFCS Wiki Year 2

This month wrapped up the second installment of the Write On WSFCS wiki, a wiki webpage used to create a district writing project for elementary schools. I was pleased many of the teachers and classrooms involved last year were willing to take it on again this year, and despite the snow days elementary schools across the district did an awesome job taking turns writing and illustrating this year's story.

This has become one of my favorite projects over the last two years, and I hope the students and teachers enjoyed the project as much as I did.

My thanks to all the classes and teachers that participated. Please check out our story at http://writeonwsfcs.pbworks.com/.

• The 2009-10 write on wiki schedule
• Last year's story "What Did You Say?"

Skills and Tools

Blogging * WebConferencing * Podcasting * Creating a Wiki

These skill posters and a blog titled "It's not about the tools. It's about the Skills" can be found on the Langwitches Blog: The Magic of Learning.

The message conveyed in these posters is something that I think many teachers hear but don't understand at first. In Reading Class, teachers don't try to make sure that students understand everything they can about the textbook that is assigned to them. Teachers do focus on using stories in that book to teach certain skills that students need to learn to be successful in the future. In a Math Class, the teacher doesn't teach specific problems to prepare students just how to solve that one problem. A teacher uses a math problem to help students discover how to use certain skills to be able to solve other problems in the future. The Reading book and Math book are just tools the teacher uses to accomplish the goals of instructing students on specific skills to help students learn. The technology tools that a teachers chooses to use to assist in his or her instruction serve the same purpose: to help students learn. We don't know all that the future will hold for these students, but we do know the skills we are teaching will be needed for whatever students encounter.

images by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

You might want to grab the images with higher resolution from their Flickr Page:

• Podcasting Skills
• Blogging Skills
• Video Conferencing Skills
• Wiki Skills

Eight Ways to Use School Wikis

With school just around the corner teachers are beginning to plan for next school year. One way that teachers can increase collaboration among their students is to use Wikis. Wikispaces can also be used to store digital materials, screencasts, presentations, PDFs and other content. Wikis are also a great way for teachers to collaborate and share within a school or school district. Let’s look at the eight ways to use wikis in your school.

1. Decrease disruptions of instructional time
   a. Instead of everyone listening to all the announcements for an entire school, teachers can read over the principal created wiki and read only the announcements that apply to their students.
2. Make meetings more efficient
   a. Team meetings and planning can be collaborated thru a wiki
   b. Each team can have their own team meeting page on the wiki site
3. Collaborate on important documents
   a. Wikis are a great place to create, revise, and update the school education plan
4. Enhance professional development
   a. All materials needed for professional development workshops can be housed in a wiki for the school
   b. Discussions can be created for each professional development workshops for teachers to extend their learning of the materials
5. Share and collaborate on curriculum maps
   a. Teachers can collaborate and plan out their curriculum maps by subject, grade level or by school thru a wiki
6. Save trees and time
   a. Many documents for the school can be housed in a wiki and teachers can access from the wiki printing only what they need
7. A portal for all your lessons
   a. All lessons for a particular subject can be uploaded to a wiki where teachers can discuss, create and collaborate on the lesson plans throughout the school year
8. How to get started
   a. Go to http://pbworks.com/ to learn more about creating a wiki for yourself, other teachers or for your school
   b. Do a search for Educational Wikis on the internet to see all the ways schools, teachers and students are using wikis
   

Article from Tech & Learning July 21, 2009
Eight Ways to Use School Wikis by Lisa Nielsen
http://www.techlearning.com/article/22064

3 Challenges to Wiki Use in Instruction

The April edition of The Journal posted an article that dealt with the benefits and instructional uses of wikis to engage students. A wiki should promote evaluating, synthesizing, elaborating, analyzing, problem solving, decision making, knowledge, base construction, argumentation/justification and learning communities according to Wake Forest University.

So how can teachers use wikis to ensure higher levels of engagement with students? Three challenges were presented.

1. Creating meaningful assignments: a wiki assignment should be collaborative with all students participating to complete the assignment. The process and outcome should depend on the collaborative success of the students. Some examples would be –
a. The assignment is open and not closed
b. The assignment requires participation
c. The assignment uses the participation to move forward
Grade
2. Value for Constructed Input: a student’s grade should reflect their active participation within the wiki as well as the final product. Some examples would be –
   
   a. Working with and building on existing information
   b. Inputting new information
   c. Synthesis of ideas and relevant use
3. Collective knowledge use: learning takes place for the students when they are able to apply what they have learned in some meaningful way. Some examples would be –
a. Non-complex problems
b. Preset solutions
c. Inadaquate time allowed for the process

Wikis can provide an effective way for students to engage in higher-level thinking skills through collaborative learning. Teachers will need to plan carefully when and how to use wikis encouraging students to explore content, discover new information and work together towards a solution and/or final product. By using a problem-based approach students should acquire the skills needed for higher-level processing skills and complex problem solving skills.

To read the full article please go to: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/24206_1
Article written by Ruth Reynard: "3 Challenges to Wiki Use in Instruction," T.H.E. Journal, 4/1/2009, http://www.thejournal.com/articles/24206

Our Writing Wiki

In January I contacted schools to gauge interest for using a wiki to create a district writing project for elementary schools. This writing project involved different classrooms in WSFCS working together to compose a story.With the global possibilities for using a wiki, it seemed like a modest goal to complete in just our district, but I wanted something we could get done in a couple of months and gather from teachers the experience they and their children had with the wiki project. If successful, it might open the door for bigger projects in the future.

Eight educators agreed to take part in the project that entailed a class from each school writing a section of a story and creating an illustration for their section. Melissa from Diggs came up with the idea for the story and volunteered (or maybe I pleaded with her) to go first. And as the story worked its way through the eight classrooms, the story grew and the plot took many interesting twists and turns. I was impressed at how little assistance the classes and teachers needed. Even with the snow days and outbreak of a nasty virus that hit computers in our district, each class met the due date and the story was completed this past week.

I hope the students and teachers enjoyed the project as much as I did, and I would like us to continue these types of collaborative projects across and beyond our district in the future. If you are interested in reading the completed story, check it out on http://writeonwsfcs.pbwiki.com/The-Story

Wikispaces and Student Collaboration

Collaborating with his fellow classmates by means of Wikispaces is my son’s latest assignment at school. He is a middle school student enrolled in Ms. C’s 8th grade Language Arts class. As a part of the assignment, Ms. C has the students reading books in small groups and then responding with each other via their group’s wikispaces page. My son seems to get it. “It”- being the transition to the web 2.0 tools as a means to learning. He has even created himself an avatar using http://www.meez.com/ He was able to upload his avatar into the wikispace and now sees it next to each of his responses. He reads his book diligently and checks nightly to see if anyone has posted new questions. He also reads the responses that others have written to his questions. When it comes to his password, well, he can’t share it with me. That’s great and he understands even the importance of having his personal username and password.

If teachers are wondering if students will respond to learning how to use this web 2.0 tool in the classroom, my son is a true testament to the fact that digital natives are able to maneuver the learning experience without much assistance. Nonetheless, it is teachers like Ms. C, who are also taking on the challenge and helping develop 21st century learners. For more information on how you can use wikispaces in your classroom, visit the wikispaces website at http://www.wikispaces.com/. Additionally, you may want to talk with your technology facilitator about offering a wiki workshop at your school.

WSFCS Wiki

The wsfcs.pbwiki.com was setup by the Instructional Technology Department to provide educators with easily accessible online resources. I've used it during workshops and recommended it to teachers who were seeking more information on a workshop topic. It includes some helpful teaching resources, as well as district examples of technology being used in the classroom. I hope that as the wiki grows we will be able to include more collaborators and take advantage of some of the great ideas in our district. See something you could add to it? Check it out and let us know.

You want me to write about what? And... you want it written where?

“Today, class, I want to encourage writing skills”

… Easier said than done, right? Not really. Give your students a direction and then let their imagination, creativity and life experiences guide their writing oasis.

How exactly do you encourage your students to open up and let the words flow? Easy! With writing prompts. Writing prompts are loosely guided topics, with minimal directions, that allow the individual student perspective to shine through. The best part about writing prompts? They can be written on paper, typed on a computer or even spoken (example: Podcasts, etc.)

Why are writing prompts needed and useful? Writing skills are one of the most basic and fundamental foundations to effective communication. Regardless of the grade level, writing skills are key. Sure, there are always students who say, writing is not my thing – not my strength. Nonsense! Everyone has ideas, opinions and life experiences that form a knowledge base. We just need to help those students tap into those areas and learn how to express them clearly.

As a teacher, your first question may be “Where do I start?” There are tons of resources that provide random and/or topic-focused writing prompts. Check out these sources to get started…

-DE Streaming “Writing Prompt Builder” within the “Teacher Center”
-The Teacher’s Corner
-eMints.org
-Education World

So... let’s take it one step further. Let’s make the writing prompts interactive!

Classroom Idea:
-Set up a wiki page for your students
-Once a week, post a new writing prompt
-Make sure all of your students have access to your wiki
-Once they log in, they can respond to your writing prompt

Benefit to the Teacher:
You are successfully incorporating a collaborative 21st Century tool into your class that encourages dialogue and (over time) improved writing skills.

Benefit to the Student:
Each student learns how to use a 21st Century resource and, at the same time, they can read (and learn from) the perspectives of their peers. Not to mention, they gain an appreciation for contributing their own important thoughts!

Get Started! Here is a 9th-12th grade writing prompt:

(courtesy of DE Streaming)
-Many teens formed study groups in the fifties. Write a short essay defining what a study group looks like today. Be sure to consider technology and transportation, among your considerations for the definition.

Medpedia - A Collaborative Online Medical Encyclopedia

Medpedia http://www.medpedia.com/index.php/Main_Page will be coming online at the end of this year. You can go there now to preview the site or apply to be a medical professional member. Like Wikipedia, it will be the largest collaborative online encyclopedia. However, Medpedia will be totally dedicated to health, medicine and the human body. This collection of work will be a tremendous impact for the medical field, scientists, researchers, educators and the general public. In the near future you will have the ability to learn about the 30,000 plus known diseases, 10,000 plus prescribed drugs, the thousands of different medical procedures and the millions of medical facilities around the world. The content will be written for the general public but it will also contain more technical pages for those in the medical field. Medpedia will contain the latest intelligence on health and medical issues. The web pages will include images, video and sound. Only screened and licensed medical professionals and organizations will be able to edit Medpedia's content. Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, the University of California Berkley School of Public Health, the University of Michigan Medical School and several other health organizations will be some of the content editors for this massive project.

Hopefully we will never have a need to visit some of these pages, other than for education, but if we do, it will be an incredible resource to help us understand these important issues.