I have had some experience using and teaching Wikispace. Last year Sobriety High did not have enough money to have four full time teachers at every site. It was proposed that all the teachers create online curriculum that we could share between sites. The main proponent of creating the online curriculum, Larry, was a huge fan of Wikispace. He showed us the "Wikis in Plain English" and sent us off on our way.
Looking at Larry's finished product (a creative writing class), it seems that he was not using the wiki for any purpose other than a place where students could go to get their assignments. Then, the students were to create their own wiki page where they put completed work. He never (and through his example we never) used a wiki for collaborative work. The students would also post replies on nicenet to prompts and each other. It seems that this couls just as easily be done using a wiki page.
I can see using a wiki page as a resource for both the parents and the students, not to mention for me as well. I was thinking of setting up an Arona Language Arts Wikipage. On that site, there would be links in the sidebar to each of the classes that I teach - for example there would be a reading and recovery page.
When you get to the front page of the wiki, there would be a description of the class and what the student expectations are. On the sidebar to the R&R page, there would be links to each of the books we reading the class (This would be a cumulative list from all the years I taught this class). The student or parent would be able to click on those links and go to that wiki page (like the Comeback wiki page).
When you get to the front page of the Comeback novel, you would be greeted with - yes you named it - more links! These would include: a section about the authors, an overview of the book, journals, project ideas, and handouts/worksheets.
The first two sections would be mainly set up by me with links to other websites detailing the biographies and excerpts from the books if I can find them. The journals and Project Ideas links would be mainly student run and would increase in size each year I taught that same book. I would probably begin with having one journal question under each chapter. Then, I would have the students brainstorm journal questions and put them under the appropriate chapter. That way, they are taking ownership of that section and the journal possibilities will continue to grow. Same would go for the project Ideas section, except that I may not put any ideas under there to begin with. The students would use that section to brainstorm ideas and write a description of what the project is. I think that I would just need to make sure that the final product have enough work around it. I would do so by commenting on their page.
I would put the last section (handouts/worksheets) up as a resource for the students - if they missed a day they could just go on and see if there was anything they missed. Is there a way to put a calendar on the wiki page? That may be helpful.
Here is my class wiki.
No comments:
Post a Comment