I am feeling so much better now. When I heard the term wiki at the beginning of this course, I felt so out of the technology loop. Even when it was explained to me, I did not fully understand what a great tool this could be in the classroom. What I found the most surprising was how very different they all were. This seemed to depend on the age level, class and purpose of the wiki. I know we are supposed to reflect on how we might use this in our own teaching, but my mind is spinning with so many ways to use this new concept, that I find it hard to focus my thoughts on specifics. Perhaps when I a done writing this post I will have more clarity!
Kindergarten Counting Book was the simplest of the wikis-and it makes sense. This is a place for digital pictures of numbers of items ranging from 1-100. It starts with a cookie in a bag for 1 and ends with a $100 bill. I can imagine the smiles (and learning) taking place as these kids learned to count.
Salute to Seuss is an example of a worldwide project. Schools with kids from preK to 6th grade were invited to add to this wiki. What a fantastic way to create a link with students all over the world. There are 38 U.S. states represented as well as Canada and New Zealand. The age range is broader than in the Kindergarten wiki, but the subject of honoring Dr. Seuss was specific. There are book lists, reviews, resources, a student gallery, links, etc. I think the downside with this big of a participation base is you have less control over the quality of what is posted. In this case that was irrelevant as the point was to share the many ways schools studied his books. There were several videos with kids reading and acting out books. I would have loved to have seen kids reading more fluently or expressively, perhaps with sounds and some movement as they acted out the story. It’s not fair to judge from afar. This could represent a tremendous accomplishment for a particular class.
Schools in the past is another example of a wiki for one specific class. In this case Mrs. Cassidy’s first graders. It serves as a place for the kids to record their interviews with parents and grandparents about how schools have changed in terms of playgrounds, libraries, number of students in the class, what was studied, school rules, and other differences. This was the most basic wiki I viewed, but it looks like it served a learning purpose for these kids. Art work or recordings of some of the interviews would be a fun addition. Perhaps a graph of the ages of the people who were interviewed. It’s hard to tell what time periods this covered. My favorite quote, “misbe havior cou get you the strap no goofing around there was only 1 teacher and what she said was law.”
Holocaust Wiki Project is an example of a site where kids would go to get the information needed for an AP World History class. I would have LOVED to have had this kind of simulation class experience in high school. If you are a history teacher, this is a wiki you should check out.
Grazing for Digital Natives is a wonderful wiki site as a resource for educators. You should visit the site just to see a voki. Jennifer Dorman, the wiki creator, has a very bare bones front page for the wiki because she uses a cartoon like character (voki) that explains the site to you. It would be helpful to have a title on this page, but the material within the site is extensive once you start to click on things. Under class resources she has an amazing amount of information for students and parents. I wish every class my 9th grade son has had a page like this. This is clearly a strong and organized social studies teacher.
Finally, on Vicki Davis’ Cool Cat Teacher blog
Wiki Wiki teaching you should check out the study hall wiki that her students created. What a great use of a wiki as well as a way to teach kids to use the technology.
I am most interested in being part of a wiki that is open to schools world wide and collaborating on a common topic or theme, but I can see myself creating a wiki as a place for classes to post and share information they learned on a specific topic or project. Having a place to store their “final products” that can easily be viewed by the kids and parents would be a great tool to use.
I would love to hear from any other music teachers or elementary teachers who have used wikis with a class. Miranda
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March 10th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Hooray! I love your post — it’s selfish, maybe, but you did EXACTLY what I had hoped participants would do for this “thing….” you explored these different wikis and noticed possibilities… the possibilities are pretty unlimited, really… I bet there are lots of ways to support music learning…. hmmm… do you ever study orchestra families, instruments or different genres of music? composers? I could see students researching different parts/components and building a resource wiki….
March 30th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I like your ideas and information. Do you teach sight-reading in your classes? Perhaps you could have some rhythms posted on a wiki and the students practice the rhythms individually and record their “performance of the rhythms” on the wiki. They could also do this in groups where they create a 4-measure “rhythm composition” and perform it using different instruments for each note value as a group. The performance would be recorded so that students in the future could learn aurally the difference in note values by looking at the notes and hearing different sounds for each note value. I think the students would love the fact that they are on a “recording”.