Initial+Thoughts+of+K-12+Educators

=After visiting the suggested sites, what are your initial thoughts on using wikis in the classroom?=

Joanie - Wow, I feel overwhelmed with the information presented. There appears to be so many applications for wikis that it will take some time to process and choose the best avenues to implement them. As I encountered problems even learning to navigate on a wiki page, I realize that I have a lot of learning to grasp before I would feel comfortable in teaching my students to use the technology or oversee their work.

I welcome when simple teaching methods are used to teach course content as was presented with the You Tube video, "Wikis in Plain English". I immediately thought, maybe I can do this.

After reading the article entitled "Eight Ways to Use School Wikis", I began to probe applications of wikis for use within our DECA Chapter, in addition to the classroom. One of the hindrances we encountered this past year within our chapter was our lack of cohesiveness among the officers. They were all involved in sports and various other organizations and it made it difficult to coordinate meeting times other than prior to the start of the school day and someone always seemed to be running late. Using wikis would provide us with the flexibility to obtain input and encourage feedback.


 * Emmy :** Joanie, this sounds like a geat use of a wiki page! I'm sure this professional use for a real purpose/real audience will give you valuable experience in designing something collaborative like that for your students as well. You will get comfortable and gain first hand experience of how it works.

Every class I have taken over the past three or so years involving technological advances has taught me the need for implementing various strategies into my classes to encourage students to want to learn and have fun with it. I need to incorporate 21st Century teaching. When preparing for presentations, I believe students would welcome the feedback provided by their peers and myself.

Amie - Having never used or participated on a wiki before (except wikipedia which I didn't know was one), I would definitely agree with Richardson's comment that teachers have to "own" these technologies first. Then we would feel comfortable teaching and mentoring their use. But as digital immigrants, is it possible for education to wait for us to have ownership first? I am afraid not because the natives will just continue teaching themselves and refuse to wait for us to catch up. I guess we will have to learn together.''

I can definitely see wikis being used in English and literature classes. Like in the Frontline episode, "Digital Nation," the teacher had the students become characters from //To Kill and Mockingbird//. They were using blogs instead of wikis, but the same concepts were there. Creating discussion pages about a book or classroom topic can be beneficial for those not comfortable speaking in class or sharing ideas that come to you before bed. Sharing thoughts as they come to you is what business people have been doing since email has come on the scene.

On the other hand, where does something like Laura's service project idea talked about in "[|Footprints in the Digital Age]" come in to play? What a great way to expand on a community service unit in a social studies classroom. I got the sense that some of the authors I read/listened to think the future for education will be primarily in online collaboration. I am not informed enough to have an established opinion on this yet, but I am not sure I would go that far. For right now, I can see how wikis can be an excellent tool to interact with digital natives where they are at, keep things relevant to them, and encourage higher level thinking skills.

**Emmy:** I love the points you make. With technology changing constantly, it is impossible to be on top of everything. Your idea of learning together is the only way to go. Do you think, that as educators - and more experienced learners in our field, - we have a bigger contribution to their learning, in teaching them the higher analytical thinking skills, teaching them to research with discrimmination, etc., all of those skills that will make them better consumers of technology? Sometimes, too, they know the razzle-dazzle technology, and don't know simple researching skills.

Kate - I've never participated in a Wiki before either (except last week when my dept got a quick tutorial on wikis from our tech director for another course I'm taking). When a SMARTBoard was offered to my classroom many years ago as one of the first in the building I felt the same apprehension - I wanted to be really good at it before I used it with kids. Thankfully they mounted it quickly and I had no choice but to use it and learn as I went - which now I try to do with technologies of all kinds. My students learned along with me - they were more intuitive about it than I was so I would ask, "How do you think I get it to __" and we muddled through it together. They wanted to HELP me - humbling but so realistic to learn with and among each other. I'm going to jump into some Wiki use right away this year and try the same approach - heaven help me :)

**Emmy:** Good for you. It shows a good understanding of what a teacher is - we are not in the role of having all the knowledge and pouring it into the heads of the students. If we are honest and realistic about the process, we find our role as a co-learner. As a social studies teacher, I'm sure you model that routinely.

After watching Will Richardson's videos and reading "Understanding the Digital Generation" by Ian Jukes et al,,one thing that Will said is ringing in my head and has been for days. He made some comment that without change to No Child Left Behind (which I imagine to mean emphasis on testing, knowing things for tests, teaching "just in case" information instead of "just in time" learning opportunities) in 20 years he sees public schools being completely irrelevant. As a teacher who wants to truly do the job I need to do for students and as a parent of a student starting kindergarten this year, OH MY GOODNESS that is frightening. So how do we change for the good of, well, ALL while playing by a set of rules set by folks who don't get it?

Emmy: This is not an easy task, as Dewey said, " A problem well-defined is a problem half solved" (paraphrase, I think)

As I read 8 Ways to Use a Wiki I was disappointed. Several of the uses were just "managerial" for teachers, not actually using wikis to teach. Announcements are fine, however, couldn't they be posted on any webpage or, as our school often does on days they don't want to use the PA, send them to staff e-mail to be read? E-mail history provides a list of who read it vs. taking more time to get into a Google Doc to initial that we read them.

I've grown to appreciate Will Richardson's perspective more in the last few weeks as I'm reading a book for another course that, while emphasizing a need for schools to change much as Richardson does, puts down teachers in every chapter. The book makes sweeping generalizations of us as bumbling idiots. It suggests we get into the worlds of our children with a list of online tasks it presumes we've no idea how to do - such as shop online, use EBay or Craig's List, or order a pizza. Richardson, instead, talks about a model for change that EMPOWERS teachers, is full of professional development, and allows teachers the same "just in time" learning that literature tells us the Digital Generation is more attuned to doing. I'm suggesting Richardson as the reading my other class switches to for some encouragement after our other book!

**Emmy:** I agree with your assessment of the "8 Ways..." Sometimes I have found that teachers start with something non-threatening, something they already do with a more familiar, comfortable tool instead of re-thinking everything in the light of a new technology. It is as if the first users of the quill had used it to carve letters into stone. I like that you are thinking collaboration for students right at the outset.

In **"My Pedagogic Creed",**  John Dewey writes, //“it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently//.” I think Richardson sees education in this way. We have no idea what kind of world our students will live in in 20 years, yet we are to educate them to live well in that world. That requires teachers seeing themselves a leaders in education - leaders in learning, in learning **how** to learn with new tools and with everything changing around them. You sound like one of those teachers!