I've been looking at the wiki information trying to figure out how/why I would or could use it in my classroom. I've used the curriki site for a few years as a supplement to my class when I didn't have a textbook. I used this site http://www.curriki.org. It was developed by a guy who wanted to help schools have up to date information in the form of labs, experiments, demos and coursework. Much of the original stuff was not to good but there were some professional parts that, thought buggy, my students really liked. I used the NROC stuff for AP physics. It was great that it would read and show you the lesson and then have check questions that you had to answer correctly before you could go farther. It was hard but even my ELL students found it nice that you could go back through it as many times as you needed.
I have a class web page that has on it everything that I see people putting on their class wikis and I'm not sure why one would be any better than the other. I like the control I have on our class website to post what I want and take things down when needed. I guess I'll have to look into wikis a little deeper to see what I'm missing.
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3 comments:
John,
Mr. Adams in science at Washburn uses a Wiki, and Mr. Grul uses myspace. Maybe talk to them as to why they chose these technology portals rather than the district website option.
Sara @ Washburn
Thanks for pointing out curriki! As for wikis vs. websites -- a lot of it is personal preference. Some people find UrbanPlanet (and such) difficult to use whereas a lot of wikis are very user-friendly. If you aren't looking for the collaboration aspect, the teacher website is perfectly fine. The metronetmili wiki is not a great example of an actual "wiki" because I'm just using it as a place to store content (like a website). We will be introducing the collaborative part of wikis next semester. Also, the wiki content is stored on someone else's server which can help with space (I'm not sure how UrbanPlanet works in those terms). So, you are right to question the difference and benefits -- hopefully it will become clearer in the next couple months :)
Wikis can be an element in changing a classroom from a place where information is simply presented, to a place where information can be learned and concepts can be mastered. Research really supports what you noted about ELL students being able to master challenging material, when they have an opportunity to review it as often as they need to. The feedback-correction loop is key to wider success for our students
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