Sunday, October 11, 2009
Learning Group 5 (Masters)
I think all in all our group was able to use the wiki successfully. Jennifer and Joshua definitely have more experience using the wiki so they were able to do most of the formatting for the group. Putting pictures onto the wiki page was the most difficult part personally. It was nice having the discussion board for our specific group so that we could discuss things. I think the wiki could be very useful in the classroom, even if it's just for them to communicate outside of school for projects and what not. It even be a useful study tool. I also know that schools are now using them for grades and as a way for teachers to communicates with parents and students at home.
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I agree that our group was successful at using the wiki. It is a good way to organize information and much easier to use to collaborate.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a great tool in the classroom. It is easier to do than traditional reports or projects and its on the computer so better for the environment. A class could even have an ongoing wiki that every class contributes a small piece to so that eventually students have a comprehensive study guide that's all student made. The difficult part of a wiki is the formatting but this particular one was very easy to learn.
I also agree that everyone in our group was able to successfully use the wiki. I was a bit hesitant to make any changes to the wiki at first, but once Alex and I were able to combine our information and consolidate it on one page, I became much more comfortable with making changes and adjustments and adding graphics to the page without fear over overriding someone else's commands.
ReplyDeleteI think a wiki is a great way to not only showcase student work but to allow students to actively work on group projects from home. I can see how this would definitely save in-class time by allowing students to take their work home with them and still communicate with others in their group. This is, however, dependent on all students having internet access at home.
I think using a wiki is also a great way to create a study guide that is constantly refreshed with new information throughout the semester or school year.
Concerning my potential use of a wiki in a foreign language classroom, I can see how the wiki could bring the pen-pal system into the 21st century by collaborating with a francophone school and maybe even having foreign and American students work on projects together.
I wholeheartedly agree with my fellow team members. I liked using the wiki for this assignment as it was a good way for our group to collaborate over long distances. There is a discussion board to communicate over potential issues, we could each put our own touches on our individual pages, and we were able to segment out the work to work efficiently.
ReplyDeleteWiki can be a good way to showcase student work. Wikis can also be used for group projects, where the teacher can keep an eye on collaboration efforts. Wikis can be used to create study groups for students from other classes or from other schools. You could use wikis for alot of things within the classroom. It is also nice because parents can keep an eye on what their students are working on.
The benefits for wikis are very easily visible. Teachers, parents, and students can all be involved in the process for one. Another benefit is that students can collaborate with alot of multimedia tools, and over long distances. Group work can be done more efficiently, and work can be observed by an administrator of the wiki.
Wikis do have their disadvantages though. They can have glitches, where the formatting can be hard to work with, students may not all have internet access, and due to the fact that everyone invited to the wiki can alter it, there can be some issues with data being deleted or altered.
I can use a wiki in my classroom during collaborative learning projects incorporated into my curriculum like my endangered species project. Instead of telling my students they need to create a brochure or poster on an endangered species, I could have them instead create wiki pages to work.
Like my group members, I think that we were succesful utilizing a wiki for our project. For me personally it was interesting exploring a new technological tool.
ReplyDeleteUsing a wiki can provide many benefits such as creating an extended learning enviornment or allowing for additional communication among students or presenting class work and material. On the downside, a teacher would have to make sure that all students have access to the internet and there is the ever present risk of 'technical difficulties'.
In a social studies class I could use a wiki similarly to how we used a wiki for this assignment. Students could be put in groups to work collaboratively in order to research and create a presentation on a variety of topics such as historical figures or events.