Warm-up+Results

Spring Class Warm-Up Results

This will be the place for you to post your results for the wiki warranty and warm-up activity with your students.

Hi All: Well, my experience with the warm-up activity with my 6th graders [small group of 10] was a lot of FUN. The kids love working in it. It was great to see them so enthusiastic to try something new. I didn't know what procedure I would use to get them to "join in". As we discussed in class last night, there are a number of ways to handle it. I decided to read the wiki help section. In this section, it had some great suggests. I told the kids to use hms [my school initials], with the first letter of their first name along with their last name for their username. For their password, I told them to have at least 6 characters but no more than 8. They had email addresses so I let them try on their own to "join in" and surprisingly enough it went smoothly with absolutely no problems. I think because they used the initials of the school. From this point on, I let them go on their own and only guided a few kids in the right direction when needed.

Interesting enough the warm up drill had a few glitches. First off from my direct observation kids were very enthusiastic and got right into reading the directions. They were all engaged in this activity which is a good thing. After they typed their name and did what they had to do [i.e. color, italisize] they saved it [So they say they saved it. Some may not have hit the save button] and this is where they got confused because it did not show up. As we know, only one person can edit and save at a time. They did not know this and I then decided to let them know that only one person at a time can edit and save. At home this would be more challenging. One boy mentioned you could go into the history section to see who has been on. I told them that they would just have to re-enter the information once they saved if it did not post. When the kids typed their names, most did not follow the directions but followed what the previous person did. For example one person decided to paint a background on the name, so the next person kept the background etc.

They had a lot of fun with the introduction section and enjoyed responding to their classmates. In plain English, they loved it. It was so new to them. They never worked in a wiki although one boy knew what it was and gave a good definition while another boy gave a good example of a wiki [the wikipedia]. As a whole, this group of kids do not like to rely on the wikipedia because they have read false information from it. In closure, I assigned a homework assignment to the kids. They had to respond to another classmate. My 7th graders create a newspaper, and I plan to have them do it in a wiki. What do you think? Looking forward to reading your experiences. JB.

I also wanted to comment on the Boston Marathon wiki lesson. Boy oh boy did the kids like this activity. I did keep it anonymous which was recommended by Rita. I realize doing it this way I do not know who did what when I go to assess the kids. Although I do get an email on their corrections which is extremely helpful. I could match up who did what using these emails. With 6th graders this would not be too much of an issue. They did an individual assignment prior to participating in the wiki which I would recommend. They referred to this initial activity to participate in the wiki. Over all I would highly recommend using wikis. As a 21 first century teacher we are encouraged to create collaborative projects for our students.

Something I just read from Mailings comments that it is recommended to use the editing tool in wiki to make something better rather than just reword something differently. I will have to keep this in mind in the future with my class. I think it is a great idea to remind the students. I just created another wiki for the newspaper that I will use with the kids in June. Should be fun See you tonight:) Janet B.


 * __ Comments from D's Wiki Experience with students: __**

I had my kids watch some clips on internet safety from my wiki...LOVE the embedding it is so easy...and I can watch "you tube" stuff at school. Oh, and they unlocked my wiki site so the kids can use it!! YIPPPEE!!

I assigned a small group of students who were done with all their assignments for class, an extra credit to help me with my wiki. I forgot that they couldn't edit at the same time, so I blew it. I know I can look in the history and see it. But the kids were so dissapointed. I told them they'd still get extra credit for class, but I didn't assign it to the rest of the kids in my other classes because I didn't want them dissapointed with the postings and have a negative experience. I did go into the history and copy and paste all of the postings so the kids could see what should have happened...bummer. The kids comments were great. I can see how when this works its going to be a huge plus for the communication and home assignments!!

My only real issue right now, is that I get a new group of students starting this Tuesday! So i'll have to try everything with a new group of students starting next week. It will be nice to get them started from day 1. I'm going to send along my kids usernames to wikispace help and get their accounts created for them. I'll keep you posted on how that works.

__From ML:__ I checked out D's wiki. (I think it's hers?) I read the directions for embedding b/c I had forgotten how to do it. Her instructions were really clear and I was able to do it again. Great! I read the Boston Marathon essay. It's great!! Glad to see it's going well.

Since I don't have my own class now, I did a family wiki as most of you all know. I am a bit nervous about personal info on the web. //What do you all think//? My wiki does not mention any addresses (town/state) altho people will probably be able to guess MA from the restaurants we frequent. I took out my children's ages and school names. There are photos of the girls and the family tho. People need to be invited into the wiki in order to participate. However, they can access it for just viewing without being invited. So you can all let me know what you think. Should I eventually delete the wiki?

I decided not to ask my husband to help me out b/c he's not that helpful. (basically useless) So I invited friends, most of whom are teachers, or technologically talented and/or who would be curious to learn more about wikis. I got a bunch of emails back, all praising the wiki and wikis in general. One friend, not a teacher, was happy to learn that teachers are now teaching what wikis are AND are using wikis to teach with. That is, at her workplace they often use wikis for group projects. She is happy that we are using technology to teach children, as one day they will be in the workforce and will be using technology, probably at a higher rate than we are now.

Another person wrote that he's been using wikis to teach with for a while. He teaches at a private school. (Punahou in Honolulu - Obama's school!). I actually visited the school back in Feb. and found that they have SMARTboards in a lot of their classrooms. He gave me some tips, like how to export photos so that they will load faster. Also, how important it is to relay to students that when they participate on a wiki that they "only edit a page if they can make it better, not simply if they would have said it differently. Contributions should make the page better." He likened the use of a wiki to the story "Stone Soup" which might help some of your students better understand what a wiki is and how they can all contribute. He wrote about it on my discussion page on my wiki. I might permanently add it to my wiki or to a wiki I eventually do when I get my own classroom. (whenever that will be) I'll repeat what he wrote: A stranger comes into town w/ an empty kettle. He tells the villagers he can make a delicious stew with a stone. He then plops a stone in the pot and fills it with water. One person decides some carrots from his field would improve the stew. Another contributes some onions, another brings in the meat, seasonings,etc. Before long, they have a wonderful stew and the stranger takes his stone and the pot and moves on. (The teacher provides the structure and the content comes from the kids themselves.) I have learned so much about wikis, how to implement them in the classroom and their potential. I will recommend this class for sure!

+++++++++++ JB. Well. . . Well you asked if it is safe to post your family stuff. This is tough to answer for me coming from a computer tech. teacher. I feel as long as you protect it with a password it should be ok. I would never post home address or telephone numbers. Really anything that is personal. You have to decide for yourself and if you can not decide have a friend look at it to give you suggestions. Sometimes you may feel it is ok to post something and some one else will see the red flags!!! Janet

+++++++++++ Disappointed - I passed out the wiki warranty and we learned all about wikis from my wiki warmup. I asked students in my class how we could best use the wiki--I explained we need to keep to our AUP - Authorized User Policy--and it quickly deteriorated by a few senior students who can't wait to get out of HS and into the working world. Suffice it to say, I was dissappointed by their misuse of my site. I deleted one discussion a girl posted about what she watched on TV the night before which got many responses. I left the others up for now. When I use this again, I need to be sure that the questions I post for discussion are sound and really spark a genuine discussion--analytical and inspiring--not brief one-line comments. I'm not exactly sure what prompts such a response--a letter grade or quiz grade for entry quality--create a rubric? Getting there and hanging in there--I still like what I created--just want it to be a fruitful tool for everyone in class. MM