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29
Jul

Wetpaint Wiki vs. Global Classroom Moodle Wiki

By garcia202 0 Comments
Categories: Edtech and Uncategorized

Before evaluating any wikis it was necessary to decide  who are the users, what would be the purpose of the wiki and what are the expected outcome of using the wiki.

Users/Contributors

The site would be used by high school students, most of whom are experienced techies with their own web pages and online portfolios. However about 20% of the students fall into the newbie category, and can be panicked by too many steps or choices.  The descriptors simple to use and visually appealing should apply to the site.  Contributors should be easy to identify since pages will be initiated by either the teacher or the students. Maintaining and editing the pages will be the responsibility of class. Limiting editing ability to only class members is absolutely necessary.

What kind of information would they be posting?

  • Questions about assignments
  • A student created glossary or online word wall
  • Evidence of understanding concepts, that other class members could review and edit
  • Sharing technical information about programs and cameras
  • Possibly concept maps
  • Images
  • Links to student portfolios and online resources

What are the expected outcomes of using the wiki with art and photography students.

  • Increase the quality of student work and learning, rather simply gobbling up class time
  • Change the organization of the class itself, moving even further into a student centered class culture
  • Improve reading/writing peformance of visual art students
  • Studies show organizational/classification/comparison activities in the art classroom will improve scores on standardized testing

How did the wikis measure up for these users, purposes and expected outcomes?

Global Classroom’s moodle…

has been easy to set up and normally has very strong technical support. The moodle wiki provided by Global Classroom is very utilitarian, with instructions that are difficult to find, and do not always work well. No tutorials were listed on the hosting site about how to use this moodle tool.  It will be necessary to contact Global Classrooms moodle experts for advice on how to use this wiki successfully. Wiki groups can be organized and editing abilities limited. Students cannot create wiki pages by using a menu, but they can edit the pages. The instruction mention camelcase and bracket links to future pages.  Images can be imported.

Tables can be created, but editing them is difficult. Even though tools appear to allow adding color backgrounds, the color did not show up in student view. Cell properties width and height are set be percentages – however like background color they did not appear to change view. Students could add information below the table, but could not edit material within the table. Because of the difficulties using tables, contrast/comparison and classification activities may be very limited on this site.

The high frustration experienced with this site by an adult does not bode well for the inexperienced students users. If the site is not easy to use, the students will not improve reading and writing performance because they will avoid using it unless it is a graded assignment.

Wetpaint’s wiki…

is on the other end of the spectrum. It provides templates for educational wikis that can be easily modified for high school or grade school level student use. The site has advertisements, but if wiki managers contact the site administrators they will remove the advertising. Templates include syllabus, lesson plan, assignments, study guides, monthly or weekly calendars and more. Images can be easily  added either as uploads or from copyright free image sites. Styles are available and easy to change. Editing is easy with a simple toolbar.

It will be easy for the students to post and complete all the information listed for student contribution. Best of all is  wetpaint’s “to do list” that can be added to the page. Contributors can check the “to do list” and tick off completed tasks. Because of the ease if editing and creating pages, student’s will probably use the site frequently to share technical information, practing their reading and writing skills on a regular basis.

Needless to say at this point Wetpaint wins hands down, or at least hands on the keyboard.

26
Jul

Technical difficulties and classroom wiki

By garcia202 0 Comments
Categories: Edtech
Tags:

Wrote this as a separate page, but couldn’t find where it was published. So I’m publishing it again on the main page. So much for understanding how to publish on the blog.

Creating classroom wikis for two high school subjects could be a valuable resource or a time-sucking waste of instructor’s time. Providing demonstrations, templates and examples may reduce the fear factor for some students. Being aware of how important naming conventions are for the wiki pages will help users find what they need and name their new contributions correctly so others can find their work.

To insure that students participate in creating the wiki the carrot and stick approach may work. Providing an opportunity for students to receive credit similar to the Duke Stars system or extra credit is the carrot, requiring the students contribute to building a glossary or other assigned page is the stick approach.

23
Jul

Final Project, hmm…

By garcia202 0 Comments
Categories: Edtech

How to describe the users — Interested in technology, generous about sharing knowledge of photography, visually attuned, and enthusiastic for class subject matter except the writing requirements — this describes BVHS digital photography students from last year, and will likely apply to the new crop in September. Adding a tendency to procrastinate and a wide range of writing or language abilities to the audience description may explain their lack of enthusiasm for most writing assignments in an art class, that can occasionally  be dull as ditch water. To overcome their aversion to writing and tap into that enthusiasm for sharing and technology, I’ll make a wiki the three periods of students will fill and edit with information about outstanding photographers and a glossary of photographic terms. Perhaps they can also organize and post links to exceptional websites.

What results do I hope the activity produces? — Reflective, discerning, self-confident, knowledgable photography students. Editing the wiki and contributing new entries will encourage students to read the information multiple times, resulting in reviewing and refining their own knowledge of the subject, and possibly their writing skills. The wiki will reinforce student awareness of how easy it is to post accurate or biased information on web sites, encouraging them to evaluate accuracy of other web sources. Emphasis on respecting copyrights and how to cite sources of images is a skill they will develop while creating their class wiki.

What advantage does the wiki have, over producing a standard web page or simple power point presentation? Text editing tools are easily recognized by high school students and learning to use a wiki site is very quick with limited decisions necessary about style or layout.   A wetpaint.com wiki site is advertisement free for education applications. Page “to do list” focuses students on what needs to be accomplished or completed on each page. As the teacher, I appreciate the ability to see who contributes specific information. If anything inappropriate is done, I’ll be able to discuss it privately with the offending party, rather than wasting everyone’s class time trying to identify the responsible individual.

Is this something that already exists? — I have seen blogs and wikis that are similar, done by individuals or by large groups. They can become cumbersome and occasionally biased. The collaborative process gives students pride of ownership of a product that can be shared with family and friends without worrying about what version of software is used. The wiki’s preferences will be set to allow anyone to view the site, but editing abilities, and wiki membership will be restricted to class members.

What drivers may limit participants sucess? — Students may still choose not to particpate, or may resent someone changing their contributions. These are outside of teacher control, because they speak more to individual personality and maturity level than to instruction or course management. Because wikis inherently allow time for brainstorming, reflection and revision I believe they can be valuable for students developing writing and language skills whether they are a native English speaker or ELL student.

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