Wow! After completing the reading for class this week, I had an eye-opening experience. Richardson pointed out all of the positive and negative components to wikis in the classroom. He validated my concerns and engaged me in all the collaborative, positive reasons to use wikis. As much as I was the teacher that told students to NOT trust wikipedia, I was wrong. I LOVE the idea of having students post an idea and have other students add information, edit, revise, change, delete (where appropriate) to the same information on the same page! Students no longer would have to walk to another students desk and distract students when they have a question or buddy revise/edit. They would be able to complete the activity independently and collaboratively all the same.
The one concern I still have about using these in my classroom would be that I don't know if students would get all the same learning out of this. Stop and think. When a student posts information and it gets changed a few things might happen. 1) The student doesn't notice (face it, that's a fact!), 2) The student notices but doesn't understand why, 3) The student gets frustrated and continuously changes it back every time (can you tell I have a few ED students this year?). I want a student to make sure that if their information gets changed, they understand why. Just as everything else, if a student posts something that's wrong...whatever was posted is what is going to stick in their brain as the correct information...how can we make sure their brain gets the edit too?
I do like what Richardson said about everyday people, with no connections, are the editors of wikipedia. Those people have an interest and want to make sure all of the information on that site is correct. That does make me feel a bit more comfortable with wikipedia and it's reliability for research purposes. That is something I will definitely put into play in my classroom.
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I too liked finding out that the wikipedia had good reasons for being dependable. Other sites can limit who can edit the info, so those sites have a good chance of being reliable as well.
ReplyDeleteIn the classroom, wikis have so much potential. First, they seem so simple for teachers to set up and for students to edit and use. Second, they seem safer than regular websites in that it is easier to make them inaccessable to others. Finally, I thought that it would be fun for the students to create pen names that only they and their friends would know. THey could also use create a self protrait like we did in the online yearbook.
I understand your concern about getting wrong facts stuck in their brains. Hopefully, if they understand what a wiki is, they will know that there could be some facts up there that are not quite correct. I think this is the main thing with Wikipedia as well. It is a great resource and for the most part is true, but should always be taken with a grain of salt. I was thinking of using a wiki as a summary to use in review. Since I as the teacher will be looking at it too, maybe it would be good to say "we are all going to contribute. Read each others and consider them. At the end, we will make sure it is correct in order to use it to review." I don't want to take away their ownership, but I don't want them getting the facts wrong.
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea of using wiki's as an editing tool between students! That would be great and would allow the students to complete editing on their own time.
ReplyDeleteYou make great vaild points. Since I have never taught at the elementary school level I find your negative points interesting. I'm beginning to wonder if it would be more successful at the high school level? I think you could make it successful for elementary too. It may be more time spent to fully explain all the advantages (and disadvantages) and see how your studnets do with it.