Wikis

My Learning Process

In this cartoon, Crawford has a kite but no string for his kite. He collaborates with Harriet who provides the string. Just like this cartoon, with a wiki everyone brings something to the table to collaborate and make it work.



Let’s get those kites flying!

By working together on a wiki everyone can make a contribution, like the campers that each bring supplies to make the camping trip possible in the Wikis in Plain English video.

My first step in my wiki exploration was to find out the definition of a wiki...

What is a wiki you ask? A wiki is software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. These wiki websites are often also referred to as wikis. (Wikipedia - the most popular wiki out there)

Another wiki, WebTools4u2use, defines them further: “Wikis allow anyone to create or edit a website or webpages with little or no knowledge of hypertext markup language (html). Wikis and wiki pages can be password protected, however, to control who can edit. Wikis allow for collaboration on projects and promote ideas. A wiki is like a blank webpage you can write on with simple tools--text, photos, graphics, videos, links and more. Wikis store the history of page changes so you can see how a page has changed over time, and can revert to an older version if you'd like. Wikis can contain text, audio, video, photos, links and more. They can be edited by multiple people, making it a great collaborative tool.”
I appreciated how detailed this definition was.
Now I really know what a wiki is...but how do I make one?

There are several free programs to use to set up a wiki including:
PB Works
WikiSpaces
Wet Paint
Wikia

Ok, so now I have the definition and programs and am ready to find out how to start using this tool.
Rachel Boyd’s Slideshare The Wiki Way provided me with a great introduction to wikis.
On YouTube I found a video pb wiki-What Is A Wiki? which discusses what wikis are and their positive uses for education.

On our e-class trailfire was a wonderful resource - The Cool Cat Teacher Blog - for teachers or others wanting to know more about the process of creating a wiki. On the blog there are letters between Vicki and another teacher, Tom Harrison, who asks how to organize a wiki and associated templates: Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 .

I wanted to use my new knowledge to create a book review wiki where students can go to post and read reviews about books in our library. I found another site, Children’s Books Wiki, that has a similar focus but is aimed toward parents looking for great books for their children or to read to their children. I wanted my site to be a place for students to go when they can’t find a book or would like to know what has been recommended.

HERE IS A LINK TO MY FIRST WIKI!

After choosing a URL for my wiki and starting to create it, I decided that I didn't like this wiki idea after all. My blog seemed much easier to create. It wasn't for me but I will create this site for the purposes of my EDES 501 class. I was comfortable using my blog so why did I need to be frustrated with something that I wouldn't be using. I created a talking VOKI avatar to introduce the students to our library wiki and tried to insert it as a plug-in but couldn't get it to work. I pasted the code VOKI gave me but at the last step, the 'preview' stage nothing happened. I tried several times to no avail. So I added it here to my blog (see the sidebar) until I can figure out how to get it onto my wiki.


Then I added my links to pages and URL's. That part I liked. And I realized it is great that the students can be a part of editing and adding to a wiki which I also liked. Ok, maybe I was wrong about wikis. I now see that I just needed time to figure out how to use them. Now that I know...watch out!

I chose to use PB Works because not only is it one of the most popular wiki creation sites but my school district has a PB Works wiki called Working Together which has great resources and teaching ideas added by teachers in my district.

Now that I have discovered the potential that wikis have to offer, my thinking has changed. I can see a lot of potential for their use personally and professionally. Most importantly to me, I am excited to implement them in my teaching. It is thrilling to realize the ways that children can display their learning using wikis. I have come to a turning point in transforming the way I teach by customizing learning for each child in the digital realm. Let me expand on this…


Wikis for Professional Learning

I now have a library wiki that students will be posting their book reviews on. This will be a great resource for students who would like book suggestions.

I would also use wikis with novel studies. In the article A Wiki Gives a Worthy Book New Life, Bowllan discusses her experience with using a wiki with the novel The Mzungu Boy: "Ideal for collaborative learning, a wiki allows students to engage the novel beyond the pages of the book... Students can use the wiki to research, outline, draft, and edit a collaborative project on the book. They could also organize articles, site links, video, and other resources there for students locally and even in Kenya!"
Just think of the collaborative potential for students to work with books. Kind of like an extensive, online literature circle!

As a librarian wikis will be useful not only to use with my students but also to use with my colleagues. We have monthly librarian meetings where we have a book share at the start of each meeting. The book share lists, with book titles, ISBN, theme, etc., are written down each meeting and emailed to all of the teacher-librarians. I have emails from the past couple of years in my inbox history which are difficult to find. This got me thinking...why not have a wiki where we can add our book share information and have everything all in one place!?

One of our major school goals for this year is improving writing. I would bring the idea of wikis to the staff as a way for students to enhance not only their writing skills but their communication and critical thinking skills too among others. I would also remind my staff that most kids enjoy being on the computer (at recess we always have a packed computer lab) and this could be a way to reach the reluctant writer.

I found a couple of wikis that will be very handy for me to refer to as a teacher. This wiki, Cool Tools for Schools, has every web 2.0 tool you can imagine that is useful for teachers! My new favourite site.
With Pikiwiki , I can take my pictures and add a story to them as a group (add audio/video captions/pictures/videos/comments). Kind of like a virtual scrapbook. I would use this as a way to collaborate our learnings from pictures taken at a field trip.

Here are some great examples of classroom wikis:

Mr.Boyer's 5th Grade Class Wiki - the most visually appealing wiki I've come across. He used Glogster to create a poster for his front page.

I also found Mrs. Shanahan's Wiki which also uses a Glogster poster as well as a Voki avatar. But the best part of this wiki was the class novel section. One of the novels they studied was The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and they actually received a postcard from Kate DiCamillo which can be seen on thier wiki!

Ward's World Wiki - the organization of this teacher's wiki is unreal!

Mrs. Gay's Science Wiki - great for secondary biology.

I also found some wikis I will use as a librarian:

Teach Library – this wiki has a compilation of lesson plans for Teacher-Librarians.

Welcome to Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. This wiki was created to be a one-stop shop for great ideas and information for all types of librarians.

Teacher-Librarian Wiki - Joyce Valenza suggests: "Let's use this space to SHARE our best wisdom and our best instruction--the new understandings, lessons, units, handouts, rubrics, presentations, images, and teaching tips that have been either rotting in our file cabinets or posted and lonely on our individual sites."

The Slideshare presentation Wikis: Enabling Collaboration in Libraries : Meredith’s Presentations discusses advantages of wikis and how to use them.

Wikis and Libraries: Resources, Articles and Links Compiled by Darlene Fichter


Wikis for My Personal Learning

There are so many ways I will use wikis in my professional life. At first, I didn't think I would use wikis in my personal life though. Then it hit me!

Every summer, 8-10 of us girlfriends from high school come together for a girls reunion weekend. Last summer we rented a cabin at Cultus Lake and the year before we stayed up at Mt. Washington. We usually email each other back and forth up to six months before each trip to arrange possible locations, decide on food (we usually each bring a meal to make for the group), costs and what else to bring. We have always had one person in charge of organizing the trip.
However, we have come across problems like everyone wanting to bring a dinner and no one bringing a breakfast meal for example.
Having a wiki for us would make things easier. We could all contribute our ideas for locations, we could have a schedule for breakfasts, lunches and dinners and have everyone sign up for one. We could have a list of what to bring. Last year three people brought the same game, the game of Things, which is a really fun game but we don't need three of them!
We would be able to view everyone's contributions and work as a team rather than one person having to do all of the organizing. This seems like the answer to girl's reunion weekend!

I came across The Wiki Index which has a list of wikis categorized under topics such as lifestyle (including games, entertainment and television) as well as a chronological list of added wikis, including The Pet Wiki and the Gardening Wiki which lead you to other wikis with the same topic. Since I am currently training my puppy, I investigated the Pet Wiki and edited the dog training wiki to include information about teaching your dog the command “OFF.”

As always, we have to consider the pros and cons before we are completely convinced to implement the tool...

Pros

- anyone can edit the page
- emphasis on collaborative learning
- students can act as teacher and learner,
learning from and helping their peers
- consolidates all of the ideas in one location
- get instant access through links
- multi-dimensional form of learning which is more appealing to most students than a piece of paper
- the teacher can see which group members have contributed to the assignment and what their contributions were
- brings students together to communicate
- can be used to make announcements, share information, post assignments, and share useful links with students
- allows students to have input into their learning
- showcases work for others, such as parents, to view
- enhances communication and critical thinking skills
- easy to learn how to use
- simple formatting rules allow for a novice web 2.0 user to contribute
- wikis "could easily become a resource, a showcase for best practices, and an articulation tool as well...(students) could add graphics and links, annotations and reflections." (Richardson 2009 p.61)

In addition, Joyce Valenza has compiled a list of Top Ten Reasons why teachers, students, librarians and administrators should use wikis.


Cons

- anyone can edit the page
- there is no spell checker so students should check their spelling with a peer or adult before they post.
- lack of options for design so not as visually appealing or as much of a focus on presentation as blogs. *Note: I had this on my list of cons before I came across the sites with Glogster posters. Now I can see that wikis can be visually appealing.



As you can see, the pros definitely outweigh the cons. So I will give this new tool my 100% stamp of approval.




I will leave you with a couple of wiki-related quotes to consider.

A community is like a ship: everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
—Henrik Ibsen

Please, grant me the serenity to accept the pages I cannot edit,
The courage to edit the pages I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference
—The Wiki Prayer