Week 7-#16

I really like the concept of using wikis in classrooms.  Ideally, I'd like to have one like Westwood's http://westwood.wikispaces.com/, but I understand that is the effort of a whole school.  One very encouraging aspect of their wiki is the halls of fame.  They have one that is featured in a Thomas Friedman article, which I will come back to later.

The three reasons I like wikis are: Interest level, Product-based outcomes, and Collaborative learning.

As much as we say this generation is immersed in technology, it has yet to become ordinary.  They love it, and what's not to love.  Compare a color filled computer screen, which they can perfect to their liking to demonstrate their learning, to a lined sheet of notebook paper.  I can't even stand it, with that confetti left over from where it was ripped out.   Even a boring site is tidier than a boring paper.  And what about handwriting?  Even though I like my script, mine is the most illegible of all.  Come to think of it, I am surprised I use paper at all!

Do you remember attending school, sometimes thinking, 'this is pure busy work'?  As an educator have you ever been implicitly aware that you were assigning busy work?  With a bit of shame I know I have (hey, this grade book isn't filling itself).  As my assessments have progressed, I've sought items that direct the learners to an eventual product.  Whatever we are learning, it should eventually build to something meaningful.  The wikis demand this. The students will be just a click away from being viewed by there peers.  This tends to make them  work harder.  If I have students take poster notes, at least they put something down, and some of them wouldn't if they were the only ones to see it.  Beyond that, it connects their learning toward a meaningful end.

Collaborative learning is really the way.  I have never been the knowledgeable authority.  When students come to me looking for black and white, I only offer shades of gray.  I envy my sister the math teacher, a2 + b2 = c2.  A student asked me "do you capitalize summer?"  They really wanted a yes or no answer, but they got, "you don't capitalize this spring, but you do capitalize the Summer of '69."  They probably won't write the word for another decade.  What can I do?  I can't dispense rules for why kernel and Colonel are pronounced  the same.  Or as the late great George Carlin put it "we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway."  The study of the English language has been a collaboration since it's beginnings.  Back to the point of wikis, the learner is the authority, and vice versa.  "Which one is right, I sent them a text, or I texted them?"  "I don't know, what do you think?"  "I think I texted them sounds dumb." "But do people use it?" "Yes, but I don't."

On a last note, there are a number of different sources of how to handle negative influences on open collaborative projects.  Certainly the students of Westwood featured in a Thomas Friedman novel wouldn't do anything to undermine the learning process, but some of my solution students might. I haven't worked with them enough to know how bad it could be, but the possibility exists.  Really, when I think about it, it is no different that anatomizing Walt Whitman in my textbooks.  Indeed, clean up is a little easier!