using social media to expand the classroom community
Posts tagged with wiki
by derrickwillard on June 2, 2011 at 8:37 pm · Filed under blog, failure, iPad, wiki and tagged: blog, iPad, student work, wiki
Ok, so in my last post I discussed “packing a digital backpack” (loading apps for educational use) for kids in my Tropical Ecology of Costa Rica class…I had them ready to go and had this ambitious plan to have the students post work on a class wiki and journal on the class blog. Well, I figured out the hard way that you don’t get full functionality editing wikis on iPads (see this link to an Apple Support Community discussion on the topic). So, I looked for a few apps to help. I found two (Wiki Edit and Wikid Wikis), but neither worked for me. So, back to the drawing board. I took the plans for the wiki and built extra pages and subpages onto our trip blog. Check out the Major Tax Projects page. Each kid has a major taxonomic group and will build blog posts at the respective page to catalog what we learn. I think this should work. I’ve got two years experience with my AP Environmental Science students building out robust class blogs. We’ll see. Stay tuned…
by derrickwillard on March 8, 2011 at 9:28 pm · Filed under wiki and tagged: student work, wiki
Earlier this school year, I wrote a brief post about a project with my 7th grade science class to create a wiki that reflects what we learned this year. In a sense, the kids are writing the book. The printed book we use is a good basic text, but it is getting a bit dated. I thought this would be a good way for the kids to put a new twist on the publishers resource. In my mind, I had some grand visions of what they would produce. In reality, they knew very little about authoring wiki pages (even though they had “used” them in classes last year). Well, after some scaffolding and practice I think they are getting the hang of it. If you have a moment, check out our lesson pages for our current earth science unit-maybe you’ll learn a little something from the kids….
Science 7 Wiki (click to enlarge)
by derrickwillard on September 21, 2010 at 8:25 pm · Filed under social media, wiki and tagged: social media, student work, wiki
So one of my projects this year is a class wiki for my 7th graders. My hope is that I can get them to consolidate what we are learning in each lesson on a wiki page. Each one has to assume the role of “class recorder” at least once a semester.
Our Class Wiki (click to enlarge)
So, here is the charge given to a class recorder:
The class recorder is the “class memory” for a unit. It is the job of the class recorder to try to capture everything we learned during a lesson–usually a week or two of class. As class recorder, you have the freedom to design and decorate the lesson page you have been assigned. So, a class recorder needs to keep really good notes of what happens during a unit. Hopefully, the lesson page will be so good that classmates can use it to catch up if they missed a class or even to study for the semester exam.
I’ve done wiki projects with high school kids as a collaborative exam review activity. I’ve been very pleased with the results and student feedback. I’m not sure how this will work with 7th graders. My hope is they’ll get comfortable with the tool and create a really neat “wikibook” that will be a great resource for our end of semester. This the first year our students take a cumulative exam at the end of each semester. So, if you use wikis or think you might, check back in our this blog or the wiki when you find time…
by derrickwillard on August 22, 2010 at 9:09 pm · Filed under social media and tagged: blog, social media, Web 2.0, wiki
So, what do I have on tap for 2010-2011? Well, here’s my list:
1. 7th Grade Science Wiki (year long project)
2. AP Environmental Class Blogs (year long project with student “scribe posts”)
3. AP Environmental Diigo Current Events Project
4. AP Environmental flickr Digital Field Trip Project
Kids come tomorrow, but we won’t kick off these projects for a week or so. Stay tuned if you are interested in how to use these social media tools in your courses…
by derrickwillard on June 1, 2010 at 1:44 pm · Filed under social media, wiki and tagged: social media, student work, wiki
In a previous post, I explained how I use a class wiki to review for the end of semester exam. So, the project is over and I thought I would share student impressions of the project. Only 9 of 15 students in this particular class (non-AP environmental science) left comments about the wiki review project on the end of course survey, but here they are (good and bad)…
Writing Prompt: Please comment on the usefulness of a wiki to prepare for either semester exam. If useful, what makes it so? If not, explain also.
“1. The wiki was really useful to me due to the fact that it not only forced you to review, but it also, through having to ask questions and correct other wiki pages, made me feel more comfortable about the information because if something wasn’t accurate of if something was missing, you, or someone else, would point it out.
2. It seems like something that goes without saying, but the wiki is only as useful as the students make it. if there isn’t a lot of solid work put in, it’s not going to be effective at all.
3. It was useful.
4. Yes. Forces us to become experts on a topic and comment on others.
5. I enjoyed the wiki, it was very useful to read over before the exam. All the important material in on place was nice.
6. I don’t think the wiki is that useful to prepare for the exam. I think it just creates more stress on the students because it is one more thing to do.
7. Very useful – however, I think that the commenting part should be less pushed (no deadlines or anything) just because I’ve seen a lot of people simply posting comments for the credit.
8. Good communal resource where we get a different perspective on the same issues we’ve learned about.
9. I think the first semester wiki was more helpful in preparing us for the exam. Perhaps, the students had more time to write/review/study the wiki pages first semester? It is useful because it highlights key points and important information for the students to know for the exam.”
This same group of students completed a similar project to review 1st semester topics in December of 2009. While I’ve removed that older wiki site, here is their feedback from that project:
- Student Feedback on Exam Review Wiki (Click to Enlarge)
And, I just love this comment from the 1st semester project:
“Hearing the ways that other people in the class phrased things on the wiki really helped me a lot. For some reason, when I don’t understand something it usually helps me when another student expresses it to me in their more simplified version as a refresher, rather than hearing it again in the word-for-word explanation…if that makes sense.”
So, if you’ve never done anything like this, would you consider trying it? Why? Why not?
*Want more? Here’s the link to student feedback on the same project when I tried it for the first time with my AP Environmental Science students during the 2008-2009 school year.
by derrickwillard on May 13, 2010 at 10:07 am · Filed under social media, wiki and tagged: social media, student work, wiki
In a previous post, I shared student feedback about using a wiki for exam review. Well, that feedback was so positive, I am trying it again this spring. I’m using the same promise (a little extra credit) bargain (puzzle method) and tool (wiki) for the assignment.
How does it work?
Each student is given a topic (puzzle method-everybody gets a piece) and has to:
- Create one page of content (text, graphics).
- Edit two other wiki pages.
- Contribute to discussion on 3 other wiki pages of interest.
So, this little review activity will unfold over the next five days (May 13-17, 2010). If you are interested in what it looks like, check it out here. I’ve set the pages to be open to viewing by everyone.
by derrickwillard on February 5, 2010 at 9:21 am · Filed under social media, wiki and tagged: exam prep, social media, student work, wiki
So I ended the last post about the creative power of wikis and blogs by noting that the majority of my students have positive things to say about using these tools. So, I thought I would let last year’s AP Environmental Science students support that assertion.
Last fall, we created an exam review wiki to help students review the semester content.
Our 1st Semester Exam Review Wiki
Each student was given a topic (puzzle method-everybody gets a piece) and had to:
- Create one page of content (text, graphics)
- Edit two other wiki pages
- Contribute to discussion on 3 other wiki pages of interest
They were given about a week to do this. I can send anyone the details of the assignment if you want to try it. But, back to the point, what did they think of this activity?
Writing prompt: Explain what you got out of the wiki assignment.
- I got a consolidated set of information to review for the exam, and it was helpful for sorting out what was going to be on the exam and what I needed to study more.
- Having to create a page, edit two, and comment on three discussions basically makes you study/ read 6 separate lessons. Meaning that it did engage me and help in the learning of material.
- I read almost everyone’s page and printed out the ones that were most challenging for me to “memorize”. I like having something tangible to hold, but the wiki did work wonders. IT was an excellent idea, and i think it shows that it helped with my exam grade.
- I really enjoyed using the wiki. Not only did it make me start reviewing days before, but the last night before the exam it provided lots of good, concise information in an accessible location. Although I do not feel like it changed my participation in the course, it did make me more involved in studying.
- This was extremely helpful. it was like a master study guide and it was my best resource. i missed the deadline for editing but had 3 discussions, and almost everyone did a good job, so overall this was the best way to study for the exam.
- I really liked the peer review.
- I thought that the wiki was the most helpful review that I had for this class or any other class for that matter. I chose to do more work than I had to because it allowed me to help others learn concepts that they didn’t understand while reinforcing the concepts for myself as well as allowed me to ask questions extremely late once you had already gone to sleep. This was beneficial because I felt well prepared for the exam! We should have wiki’s for all of the tests!
- It helped me prepare for the exam.
- The questions raised by my peers often directed my attention to areas that I needed to spend more time reviewing.
- I hated that we started it while we were supposed to study for other exams, and I wish you would have given us more time to work on our pages, but I thought the wiki, once the research was done on each topic, was a great way to study, and it helped a lot to participate in discussions and to read over everyone’s pages.
- I got a lot out of the wiki assignment. I was under the impression that it was an all-or-nothing opportunity, so I did not participate after I built my page and missed the next deadline. However, the wiki was my main resource for studying, and I felt very well prepared when taking the exam.
- I still think the exam review should be on paper because it is nice to everything in your hands at once. The most useful thing about was looking at the questions on the discussion board and how rapidly students answered back.
- Bettering my understanding by trying to explain concepts to others.
- Very helpful, read everyone’s pages. very good review.
- I got alot out of the class wiki for the exam. By making my page it forced me to start thinking about the topics early. I went through each and every page as I studied to make sure I covered all the concepts and see what others thought was important. I also found it helpful to comment on wikis and get feedback from my peers and the teacher. It gave me something to be engaged in as I studied for the exam.
So, you decide. Is it worth it to try this? Don’t you want your students to use words like helpful, great resource, thinking and engaged when they speak of an activity? Of course, there were some naysayers too, but that is a topic for another post.
