Educational Wiki Projects
I decided to try to check out some Wiki pages that covered the range of grades of school. The first one I one I found interesting was the Westwood Schools Wiki page found at westwood.wikispaces.com. The students provided efolios, code and web design projects on their site. It was a lot of information with all of the students’ work to look through and share. Students were also given a chance to work together on pages to show what they were working on in group projects. I really didn’t think anything was missing but I believe this page could use a little more organization based on the many years this site has been used. It would be better to have the current year up and maybe the prior years archived.
A wiki I saw could use some updating but had a great idea was the Kindergarten Counting Book page at kcountingbook.wkifoundry.com. It was showing how to count to 100 using various objects. There was confusion on how and who gathered information. I assume it was a class assignment but I didn’t see any explanation on what was going on in the page. It looks unfinished which was a shame. I could see this working throughout the school year to add a picture a day as the project of the day with the number. Add some video of discussion on how to choose what to count and the student counting it out. Lots of potential, just not used.
The third wiki that I explored and enjoyed because it showed a great way to use collaboration, content and tools was the Let’s go West! wiki at gowest.wikispaces.com. It was a collaborative effort by third grade students to discuss the Westward Expansion in Oregon. The students obviously collaborated on what parts they would work on and used lots of pictures, charts and created timelines on their pages. It was visually interesting. They even worked on some cross-curriculum work with math problems though that part was down and not available by the time I was exploring it. I think this is a great way I would use a wiki for student work. A wiki is a great way for students to work together and display their work without going back and asking who did what, the students proudly showed what they worked on by giving their names. Reich states in his article, “Although education technology is often used to generate efficiencies in content delivery and testing, many educational technologists focus on developing higher order thinking skills and allowing students to rehearse for future performances in a technology-rich workforce and civic sphere” (Reich, 9). I think this really goes to the way teachers are trying to incorporate technology collaboration tools like the third grade website. I think that the high school website may be more of a display site for work, I think the third graders where they show their collaboration and bringing their ideas to life provided a more interesting way to show the use of wiki pages and similar collaboration tools.
Google Tools and Productivity Apps
The great thing in my opinion about productivity apps and google tools is it helps to build the classroom digital environment. I always introduce the digital responsibilities at the beginning of the school year and tell my students that they are no longer dabbling in the internet with youtube. They are now responsible for leaving a positive digital footprint and I am going to help them by showing them how to increase their learning with technology. I lay it on thick about how what they do on the internet in class is 100% educational but can be fun and entertaining and that they are not just reading off websites that they will create website. I put the “dog and pony” show to show them how these tools will support their learning. I have used google docs to show student how they think they are erasing something that no one will see again and bring it back. For 3rd graders that is amazing and it also makes them think twice about typing anything, especially that it can show who typed what. I use this to encourage students how it is important that you show you are doing their part and students become engaged knowing that they can create pages and show their learning without needing paper and pencil or posterboard. It also helps to try to lean toward a paperless world where projects are just a click away instead of lugged around in a bag to be graded.
I think with a lot of sites allowing talk to text tools to accompany the sites, it helps students who have diverse needs to be able to express themselves when writing is difficult. Students who can express themselves more with talking and the text appears will feel more encouraged to collaborate and create with other students.
Below I included a couple of times I have used Google Docs. More recently I was interested in becoming an eLeader at my school and had to send in some kind of presentation about myself. A couple years ago for my Masters, my classmates and I collaborated on a presentation on Project Based Learning. Google Docs is all about creating products that are analyzing and evaluating lots of different topics. You can show depths of thinking and learning using google slides and docs to create fantastic projects and lessons. It offers great ways for students of various learning styles and levels to express themselves where they may have felt stifled with pencil and paper.
References
Reich, J., Murnane, R., & Willett, J. (2012). The State of Wiki Usage in U.S. K-12 Schools: Leveraging Web 2.0 Data Warehouses to Assess Quality and Equity in Online Learning Environments.Educational Researcher, 41(1), 7-15.
Go West. (n.d.). Retrieved February 26, 2016, from http://gowest.wikispaces.com/
Kindergarten Counting Book. (n.d.). Retrieved February 26, 2016, from http://kcountingbook.wikifoundry.com/
Westwood Schools Computer Science. (n.d.). Retrieved February 26, 2016, from http://westwood.wikispaces.com/
I decided to try to check out some Wiki pages that covered the range of grades of school. The first one I one I found interesting was the Westwood Schools Wiki page found at westwood.wikispaces.com. The students provided efolios, code and web design projects on their site. It was a lot of information with all of the students’ work to look through and share. Students were also given a chance to work together on pages to show what they were working on in group projects. I really didn’t think anything was missing but I believe this page could use a little more organization based on the many years this site has been used. It would be better to have the current year up and maybe the prior years archived.
A wiki I saw could use some updating but had a great idea was the Kindergarten Counting Book page at kcountingbook.wkifoundry.com. It was showing how to count to 100 using various objects. There was confusion on how and who gathered information. I assume it was a class assignment but I didn’t see any explanation on what was going on in the page. It looks unfinished which was a shame. I could see this working throughout the school year to add a picture a day as the project of the day with the number. Add some video of discussion on how to choose what to count and the student counting it out. Lots of potential, just not used.
The third wiki that I explored and enjoyed because it showed a great way to use collaboration, content and tools was the Let’s go West! wiki at gowest.wikispaces.com. It was a collaborative effort by third grade students to discuss the Westward Expansion in Oregon. The students obviously collaborated on what parts they would work on and used lots of pictures, charts and created timelines on their pages. It was visually interesting. They even worked on some cross-curriculum work with math problems though that part was down and not available by the time I was exploring it. I think this is a great way I would use a wiki for student work. A wiki is a great way for students to work together and display their work without going back and asking who did what, the students proudly showed what they worked on by giving their names. Reich states in his article, “Although education technology is often used to generate efficiencies in content delivery and testing, many educational technologists focus on developing higher order thinking skills and allowing students to rehearse for future performances in a technology-rich workforce and civic sphere” (Reich, 9). I think this really goes to the way teachers are trying to incorporate technology collaboration tools like the third grade website. I think that the high school website may be more of a display site for work, I think the third graders where they show their collaboration and bringing their ideas to life provided a more interesting way to show the use of wiki pages and similar collaboration tools.
Google Tools and Productivity Apps
The great thing in my opinion about productivity apps and google tools is it helps to build the classroom digital environment. I always introduce the digital responsibilities at the beginning of the school year and tell my students that they are no longer dabbling in the internet with youtube. They are now responsible for leaving a positive digital footprint and I am going to help them by showing them how to increase their learning with technology. I lay it on thick about how what they do on the internet in class is 100% educational but can be fun and entertaining and that they are not just reading off websites that they will create website. I put the “dog and pony” show to show them how these tools will support their learning. I have used google docs to show student how they think they are erasing something that no one will see again and bring it back. For 3rd graders that is amazing and it also makes them think twice about typing anything, especially that it can show who typed what. I use this to encourage students how it is important that you show you are doing their part and students become engaged knowing that they can create pages and show their learning without needing paper and pencil or posterboard. It also helps to try to lean toward a paperless world where projects are just a click away instead of lugged around in a bag to be graded.
I think with a lot of sites allowing talk to text tools to accompany the sites, it helps students who have diverse needs to be able to express themselves when writing is difficult. Students who can express themselves more with talking and the text appears will feel more encouraged to collaborate and create with other students.
Below I included a couple of times I have used Google Docs. More recently I was interested in becoming an eLeader at my school and had to send in some kind of presentation about myself. A couple years ago for my Masters, my classmates and I collaborated on a presentation on Project Based Learning. Google Docs is all about creating products that are analyzing and evaluating lots of different topics. You can show depths of thinking and learning using google slides and docs to create fantastic projects and lessons. It offers great ways for students of various learning styles and levels to express themselves where they may have felt stifled with pencil and paper.
References
Reich, J., Murnane, R., & Willett, J. (2012). The State of Wiki Usage in U.S. K-12 Schools: Leveraging Web 2.0 Data Warehouses to Assess Quality and Equity in Online Learning Environments.Educational Researcher, 41(1), 7-15.
Go West. (n.d.). Retrieved February 26, 2016, from http://gowest.wikispaces.com/
Kindergarten Counting Book. (n.d.). Retrieved February 26, 2016, from http://kcountingbook.wikifoundry.com/
Westwood Schools Computer Science. (n.d.). Retrieved February 26, 2016, from http://westwood.wikispaces.com/
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