I think the Wiki is a great tool to use in a classroom. It allows for many possibilities that a blog doesn’t afford for. Blogs are very individual, and don’t get me wrong, they’re a great place for expressing your opinions, but they just aren’t conducive to group work. I think a Wiki is great for people that are attempting to compile separate information into one place that everyone has access to. I never have used one before but now that I’ve been introduced I’m actually using one for one of my other classes. It’s hard to arrange a time that works well for everyone in my group to meet so a Wiki is exactly what we needed. It allows everyone to edit the page so that we can basically do group work from our own homes.
In terms of classroom use, there is so much collaborating going on in classrooms constantly and a Wiki allows for that collaboration to extend to after school while the students are at home. It even seems that students enjoy it and are engaged even outside of the classroom.
Here is my wiki: http://exploringcriticallenses.pbworks.com/
In one of my other classes we are exploring in depth the literary critical lenses. I decided to create a Wiki for this project because the class was spilt into groups and each group is responsible for analyzing one specific lens. Therefore, every group is really only knowledgeable for one lens. I thought by creating this Wiki I could get all the information on separate pages that everyone can get access to and even edit. I think this can transition very easily to a classroom of my own where I am teaching my own students about critical lenses.
One challenge that I see in collaborative writing assignments on Wikis is computer access. It is a great fear of mine that I will assign something that not all the students will be able to participate in at home!
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I love your "Critical Lenses" idea for your classroom wiki. In fact, I will probably steal this idea when I have my own classroom. Studying critical lenses and doing readings through those lenses is sometimes confusing. A wiki is a great way for students to add to what they know as they go along. Also, students from other classes could either add to it (from the readings they do) or use it as a resource.
ReplyDeleteEmpowering students to write what they know about critical lenses in their own wiki is empowering and will probably result in more meaningful, long-term learning. Great idea!