Wiki Wiki Wiki Yeah!

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.

How Strong is Your Blog?

I took a long time deciding how I wanted to start this post. Originally, my goal was to discuss Web 2.0, its uses in the classroom, and how wonderful a thing blogging can be in the classroom as long as it is used correctly. However, I was watching the Daily Show yesterday and he began to discuss the Blog-o-sphere's reaction to his mannerisms regarding other journalists (See Video).



After seeing this entertaining bit on The Daily Show, it made me start thinking about the use of blogging and teaching students about the strength of language being used. One of the things my AP students never seem to grasp is that different words have different impact. Saying "could" or "possibly" while writing a historical essay tells the reader that you have no idea what you are talking about. With blogging, students can write and reflect on what they learn and practice using language with different strength depending on what the situation is. Blogs do provide students the opportunity to practice their skill writing, which is something that we tragically fail to improve as teachers. Whether it is the lack of writing at home, the classroom, or a combination, students are not adequately prepared to be skilled writers when leaving for college. Web 2.0 can help improve these writing skills, increase and develop a stronger vocabulary, and develop a flexible style that can be implemented based on what the situation calls for.