O.k...so I am starting to feel like I have a little bit more of a handle on this whole Read/Write Web thing!
I have kind of a love/hate relationship with Wiki's, and I think the comment that Wiki's mean the teacher has to let go, really hit home with me!
At first, I loved the whole idea of a wiki, students can post and comment and edit and learn all togather in an open forum. But that also means that students have full control of their learning! As a teacher, that can be very scary...what if they don't learn the right thing?
I had two other concerns with using wiki's in middle school. One, middle school student have very limited organization skills (at least the ones I've encountered), so a wiki seems like way to disorganized to introduce to students. I want to focus on organization and structure and here a wiki is more like "Go for it!" Post at will! My other concern is the whole plagerism/author ownership issues related to a wiki. It seems to easy for students to "steal" someone elses comments and use them on their own. Middle school students need to work on their own orginality, not have free reign over any content.
Both of these issues could be combated with good instration and activities to "set the stage" for wikis! Just means I, as the teacher would have to do more work!!
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2 comments:
I love the title of you post. :-)
I can understand your concerns with using wikis with middle schools students. One of them can actually be solved. On a wiki, you can create new pages, then put those pages in the navigation pane. A focus statement could be put on each page, and students could be divided to work on only certain pages. This could add to the organization. There's also a way to make a table of contents on a wiki page, that willl take all heading and place them in a table of contents. The command is [toc] - and you have to put in the square brackets. This goes at the top of the page. I'll show you how this works in our face to face class, if you remind me. :)
Your reflections about wikis allow me to see the learning you are doing. Great post!
Yes, I agree with you and understand part of the fear coming from the "knower" point of view. It is dificult to let go and allow students to find information on their own. The way education is being limited with all the state and federal regulations does not help either. It is like a tunnel vision through which students and teachers as well have to go in order to attain, not knowledge necessarily but rather a "seal of approval."
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