Wiki's can be extremely powerful tools or as simple as a bulletin board. One example of a simple Wiki is our class Wiki (frilit). At this point, it is only a couple of pages and does not have any true usefullness (other than as a teaching tool). A more complex and power Wiki is Wikipedia. I happened to stumble across a Teacher's Paradise link when researching the temperature of the Earth's inner core. What I thought was a website was actually referencing an article in Wikipedia. This is a cool use of the resource.However, teachers need to use caution when using Wiki's within the classroom as they could create more problems than they are worth. While this is personal opinion, I feel the need to share it. Wiki's, when used in small groups, can be fantastic. Having students collaborate on a project and each input their share of the work is useful for a couple of reasons. The first benefit is for the teacher. When a student adds information to the site, the teacher has visibility of the changes so accountability can be maintained. The second benefit is for the students. Having a group Wiki can allow students to collaborate online without having to physically meet. This is a nice benefit because parents do not have to coordinate with each other to get their children together for a brief period of time. It also provides the students with a medium that can be viewed by the world (unless prior restrictions have been made). Often times, this is not the desired outcome, but students do enjoy being able to show off their hard work.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Wiki's do have the potential to be the source of headaches. Have you ever heard the expression "Too many cooks spoiled the soup."? In our class's brief use of Wiki's, we have already seen this happen. We were fortunate that no work was compromised, but it could have easily created problems. As long as the groups using it are small (e.g. grade-level teams of teachers and groups of four or five students), they are a viable option. For me, the above situation all but eliminates Wiki's as an option for whole class assignments. Blogs would be a better option.
I know the video has NOTHING to do with the post (I couldn't find one that was relavent), but I had to find out if I could post a YouTube video in the blog.
ReplyDeleteThe video may not be relevant, but it was entertaining.
ReplyDeleteI am happy you mentioned the saying "too many cooks spoiled the soup," because I think it is something that novice teachers like ourselves, might forget to think about in our planning. While I don't think that this should be the only reason to chose blogs over wikis, I think it acts as a high supporting factor. Giving students the chance to change someone else's work could lead to problems such as: incomplete work, students feeling left out, students feeling that their work isn't good enough, and some students may be too "shy" or not confident enough to make a post. I think that the concept of having wikis in the class room is great, I just think it might be a little too much for the teacher to manage and keep track of. I'm with you Pat, I will stick with blogging for now.