So the process of creating class-based Wiki's is an interesting and dangerous prospect. I recently decided to embark on this journey by having students create visual biographies of important enlightenment figures in either PowerPoint or Word. Students were then required to submit their basic assignment to a Wiki that I created on Blackboard. While this assignment was fairly simple from a structural sense, I also attempted to make the Wiki instructions as fool-proof as possible. I know that not all students have experience using different types of technology, especially Web 2.0 that isn't Facebook, but I assumed that including straightforward, dummy-proof instructions would help any students who had trouble. Unfortunately, I was ever so wrong about this. Students deleted other students' projects, did not add their own, or completely blanked the page. It was simply shocking to go through the history and see students completely destroy the Wiki page because of a lack of understanding. What terrifies me the most about this situation is that it means the Sophomores in my High School at the AP level cannot figure out how to add a link with explicit instructions laid out for them.
Even though the Wiki element of the project did not work as smoothly as I had hoped, it does not mean I am afraid of Wiki's forever, but it does mean another skill set that students should have that they obviously do not. It means that, in the future, if I choose to do a Wiki, I will have to run a tutorial (which I even did for the previous project!) showing students just how the Wiki functions. Obviously, the more complex the project gets (not just adding files), the more difficult the instructions get and the higher level thinking required in order to see success.
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After reading about your difficulties, I am even more motivated to teach these skills in elementary classes. Hopefully, after years of using these skills, you will start to see less occurrences of students that have no idea how to use collaborative tools.
ReplyDeleteIt could be helpful if you try this again to start out a bit smaller with a wiki project in advance. Maybe even at the start of the school year. Each student could create a wiki page about themselves with their bio, a picture, and a few links. That way that have had a small exposure before the large project. Just a thought, I know that I tend to go to big to quick in my student technology pursuits.
ReplyDeleteWere you able to get the students projects that were lost? I can imagine your frustration, and it makes me realize how much I need to not assume. Even though they should be digital natives...(sometimes I wonder about this!)
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