Wikis
The outstanding article our group chose was submitted by Paul, and is entitled “For Teachers New to Wikis” by Joe Moxley, MC Morgan, Matt Barton, and Donna Hanak (link is provided at the end of the article). What are wikis? Wikis are free online writing places. Wiki authors do not claim ownership of the text they write because the writing in wikis can be revised and changed anytime. Each time the text is changed in a wiki a new version is saved. This article in itself is written like a Wiki would be, in that it had four contributors who came together and collaborated to get all the content they wanted in. One thing to note about wikis is you can also go back and see previous versions of the wiki, allowing the new author and readers to see the writing process. Credit for the work is given as a community and not as individuals. Wikis are designed specifically to be writing space and should be used as such.
If you’re wondering when you become a teacher how you could use wikis to facilitate teaching, writing development, and learning, then this is the article for you!
Some examples given from the article are:
- Provide a space for free writing
- Debate course topics, including assigned readings
- Share resources
- Maintain a journal of work performed on group projects
- Discuss curricular and instructional innovations
Another important aspect of our article was that it listed where teachers can find appropriate writing spaces for their students.
The four places the article suggests are:
- Writing Wiki
- Wikipedia
- Wiki Books
- Teaching Wiki
When it comes to the question of how to introduce wikis to your students our article is there again to save the day!
Examples of how to do so are:
- Introducing the students first to the rules for writing wikis.
- Develop a system for recording the efforts and accomplishments of individuals.
- Talk with the students about the conversations they will establish for co-authoring texts.
- Have students write a StyleGuide for their wiki. (An example of a StyleGuide is linked to our article).
- Ask students to play particular roles.
Like most new technology that teachers introduce there are always obstacles they can expect.
Obstacles that our article lists are:
- Students are sometimes reluctant to contribute because they lack confidence in their writing.
- Some teachers and students are uncomfortable about the advantages and disadvantages of public writing.
- Sometimes students don’t like having to learn how to use wikis.
The use of visuals and design options are limited. - Sometimes work is inadvertently deleted or intentionally hacked, and the editing process becomes a hassle.
- Finally, wikis conflict with traditional assumptions about authorship and intellectual property.
- Having students revise a Wikipedia page would be a good exercise in editing, spelling, grammar, and readability.
- For those students whose writing skills need work, this exercise allows them to read the work of their peers and learn from it.
- A class essay provides an opportunity for students to work collaboratively.
- Wikis allow teachers to see improvements the student has made over a period of time.
- Through the use of wikis students learn what bibliographies are and know what plagiarism looks like.
- Wiki pages are good to help teaching especially for an English teacher because it gives students a reason to write and have a place to show off their work.
- It inspires and makes students revise their work because the students know it can be viewed by their peers. This makes them work harder because they don’t want to look uneducated.
- One good thing about wikis is you do not have to use HTML to use one! This makes it especially easy to use into the classroom.
- Wikis would allow students to be creative, and hopefully encourage them to exercise their writing skills to their best ability.
http://writingwiki.org/default.aspx/WritingWiki/For%20Teachers%20New%20to%20Wikis.html
16 comments:
The way you started your post by giving credit to the member who found the article was a good idea. I like how you summarized your article while really selling it to the readers. Including the appropriate writing spaces teachers can find for students was also an excellent idea. Good job group 5!
The thing I really liked about your blog was that you gave examples of how Wikis would help students and how it would be useful also to the teachers. Overall your blog was great, one little suggestion I have though is to just be sure to go over your writing before its posted, there were a few minor grammer errors but besides that GREAT JOB!
I really liked how you divided your blog up into different sections. There is alot of information and its alot easier to read when the information is divided up. The information you posted was very informative and I feel that after reading your article a teacher would be more educated on this topic.
I do agree with the last post, make sure you proof read your blog before publishing, even though there are minor errors, it could change the overall effectivness of your blog.
Great Work Group Five! I really liked your summery! It was super easy to read and it had a lot of useful information! I actually saved your summery to my computer! I think you guys had a lot of interesting ideas for using wikis and I know I'll use them in my classroom when I'm a teacher! Great Work Group Five!
I really like how you started out the summary by saying who gave the article! I also liked how you showed how to use Wiki in the classroom.
Excellent job group 5! I really liked how you gave credit to the group memeber that found the article in the very beginning. I also like how you covered a ton of information and it was still fun and easy to read because you created lists. You really had some great ideas about using wikis in the classroom!
I like how at the end of the blog you listed your groups thoughts on Wiki and how it would help the students. One thought I particularly liked was, "Through the use of wikis students learn what bibliographies are and know what plagiarism looks like." I think a lot of kids even college kids struggle with plagiarism and if you can help a kid early on I think thats great.
Having students revise a Wikipedia page would be a good exercise in editing, spelling, grammar, and readability.
For those students whose writing skills need work, this exercise allows them to read the work of their peers and learn from it.
A class essay provides an opportunity for students to work collaboratively.
Wikis allow teachers to see improvements the student has made over a period of time.
Through the use of wikis students learn what bibliographies are and know what plagiarism looks like.
Wiki pages are good to help teaching especially for an English teacher because it gives students a reason to write and have a place to show off their work.
It inspires and makes students revise their work because the students know it can be viewed by their peers. This makes them work harder because they don’t want to look uneducated.
I liked how your blog was easy to follow. Your suggested a lot of good points using main points and bullets. Your group did a good job and provided a good descriptions of wikis!
The way that you say that the post on a wiki site doesnt give credit to the poster because anyone can change or revise it is a very good inclusion. Most of the other posts I read did not include this information. It gives credit to a group of people and no individual. The writing format you used was very simple and easy to read. Nothing too complex, which is good. Lots of great information, and you didn't sidetrack at all. Great post, keep up the good work.
Wow, your article had so many great ideas! I especially like the idea about the students adding/editing on Wikipedia pages. Wikipedia is so informative!
Great article team five! The layout of your article was very reader friendly. Your team leader did a wonderful job with condensing information to make your blog simple yet very effective. I love your section on obstacles. It is nice to read the postitives as well as the negatives regarding our topics. Great organization and great article team five!
I really enjoyed reading this blog. The first chunk was full of good information. It explained a lot about wikis and how they are used. I also liked that you broke up the paragraphs by using points. It made it easier and more fun to read because it broke up the monotony of reading through the blog. I also think you did a great job explaining how they can be used in the classroom. Great job!
I like how you guys included an abundance of ways to use wikis in the classroom. Having students revise a Wikipedia page, interact with peers using peer review on grammer and spelling, collaborate with ideas theyve already learned. I like how you included teachers as well saying they could check on students improvements. Great work guys.
Great job. I really like that you covered both the positives and negatives of a wikis. It really helps someone to be more open minded and make up their own mind how they feel about it in the classroom.
I liked the part where you mentioned about a english having a wiki because it gives the children a chance to show off their work.
And I like that because the child could go home and pull up the page to show their parents their work.
I also like the fact that you used bullets, so it was able to read your ideas.
This blog had more information than i was exposed to when i was looking at Wikis. I was informed about how wikis work in the classroom and how to teach students to use it. I liked the information this blog gave and i have a better grasps of wikis now.
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