My first experience with a Wikispace that I created was last year with my 6th graders. We were reading Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli and used the space as a way to comment on and discuss topics from each section of the book. I sure had a lot to learn! Stupidly, I made all their passwords the same. Why in the heck would I have done that??? Oh yeah, to make it easier. You can imagine the situation that ensued can't you--the next day at school one of my kids said that there were several distateful comments posted using his name, but he was not the writer. Then I received a private email message from one of my students. Aw...how sweet, but wait! That means they can send private messages to one another. I don't want that responsibility on my shoulders! So, I frantically sent an email to Caroline and all was resolved.
The above is another reason I am so thankful I'm taking this class. It's easy to get excited and jump right into Web 2.0 with my kids, but I've got to take some time to practice it first. I eagerly checked out the sample wikispaces for this "thing" because I want to make sure the next time I set one up with my class it is totally purposeful, user friendly, and applicable to the kids and the content.
I have seen the idea about "classroom scribes" a couple of times now and I just love it. In this Math 12V Outcomes Portfolio wikispace, the students take turns posting notes from the class on the page. The scribe posts (notes) are very smartly organized by the learning outcomes (GPS here in GA). By doing this, the teacher has documentation of standards being taught and the students are aware of the content they are supposed to be learning.
On the 1001 Flat World Tales Project page I ran across a question of educational ethics. We know we shouldn't disclose information about students in front of other students. The 1001 Tales wikispace was an awesome collaborative effort, and, as I discovered after reading some discussions, an effective tool for students to learn the etiquette of commenting on others' work. This issue of how to comment appropriately was handled on a public discussion between two of the teachers, and they used student names. I don't know if that's necessarily wrong, but I don't think I would handle it that way. Just something to think about if you're collaborating with another class.
Last wikispace I investigated: Grazing for Digital Natives was not really classroom based, but offered lots of resources for technology integration. TONS of stuff on this page, so I really, really, really appreciated that when you first pull the page up, all you see is the avatar and the table of contents and then you can choose where to go from there. Something else, and I know some of the people in this class have them- so sorry, but the avatars FREAK me out! I think my Mii on Nintendo is all I can handle.
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When Caroline helped me set up my Wikispace, their passwords were w and then their student number. This worked out well. Before we went to the computer lab we had a long discussion about what was appropriate and what was not. I thought that would work. WRONG! I had never really played around with blogging, messaging, or anything along those lines. My students, of course, instantly found the discussion section, which we were going to use that day. The problem for me was that they wanted to post two word comments and see how many they could post. Plus, they were not posting substantive postings that would help the discussion continue. So, before we sent to the computer lab the next time, I reset everything that I didn't find helpful. Then, when the students asked where their posts were, I explained that I had full control over what was posted and that any further fruitless chatting would result in a write-up and loss of computer privileges. They were so baffled by how I did that, how I knew and fixed it, that I didn't have any other issues. Plus, it added to my reputation of seeing and hearing everything.
ReplyDelete"added to my reputation of seeing and hearing everything" muhahahahahaha (my second evil laugh of the class)
ReplyDeleteI had the same problem with "Hey! What's up? What do you think about the book?" kind of comments. I didn't delete them as you did, but I will definitely do that next time. My hope is that I won't have to delete anything, that after seeing some good examples of posts and comments, which they didn't get to see last year because I didn't show them, and discussing what is appropriate, etc. my students will do a good job. If that doesn't happen, it can be a learning experience though-going back to the challenge that as we integrate this technology we must also teach the students to use it properly.
As we begin to integrate these technologies into our instructional practices, there are bound to be hiccups and *gasp* inappropriate actions from our students. I can't tell you how many times I jumped in all excited and found myself in a corner that I had to squirm to get out of. It's a learning process for the educator just as much as it is for the student!
ReplyDeleteI have heard of other teachers who will create a wiki page for first timers to "play" on for so they can see the kind of damage they can do by overwriting each other. They also let them use that page to kind of wear themselves out in the discussion area. After the play time is over, the page is deleted and the only ones remaining are those left for serious work.
Sometimes, they just need to break it in a bit before settling down for the task at hand. Sorry, I had not heard about that before last year Sherelle!
Definitely setting up the ground rules up front and, as Jessica did, showing them that you are "all powerful" in their wiki world helps drive the point home that this isn't a sandbox, but an instructional forum instead.