Week 2 - Using Wikis in the classroom

Using Wikis in the classroom

I must admit that I have struggled to move past this activity and it has taken much longer than I had envisaged.  I consider myself to be quite computer literate, but I must confess that I got completely lost in Wikis.  Mainly signing up to create a wiki and accessing others that fellow students have made.

I’m still not sure where my Wiki ended up – watch this space to see if I can find it again…

                                Found it:  http://mrstuckersgrade8science.cquniversityschoolofeducation.wikispaces.net/  :)

To look critically at the attributes of a wiki and how it can fit into the classroom, I will do a further analysis in a future post as I also explore web sites and blogs.

The class example of a Wiki to reflect on the use of mobile phones in the class room (using de Bono's Six Thinking Hats - and see graphic below) was not particularly successful and may have also clouded my judgement on the usefulness of Wikis – and it has in no way helped me with the mobile phone topic either.

I was not one of the first people to access the site and by the time I sat to have a read of my fellow students thoughts, and hopefully add my own, the site was a total mess.  I was unable to read it without it bouncing all over the screen and in the end I gave up around the red or blue hat…

I guess that it was fairly open slather and some more direction on its use or a better layout may have helped.  If I were to use this in my classroom, I would make sure I gave very explicit instructions and the students would know how to navigate the Wiki before I let them loose in it.

 

(http://katekendall.com/2010/04/05/graphic-facilitation-of-de-bonos-six-thinking-hats/)

(Also fitting to reference the most famous Wiki - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats)