Classroom Tools - Wikis

Using wikis in the classroom necessarily presumes collaboration among students and gives them a genuine opportunity to publish and share information they regard as important (Teehan, 2010). Collaboration can be understood as the process of bringing people (i.e. students) together to share and create ideas. Wikis are the instruments that can make that happen. Also, the act of publishing and sharing information online ushers students from the role of recipient to contributor by exposing their ideas to a worldwide audience. Therefore, their work becomes a “real-world, noteworthy, and grown-up endeavor” (Teehan, 2010, p. 49).

Pedagogically, learning becomes relevant to them motivates further learning of a given subject matter being studied. Also, wikis give students a natural outlet for creativity and promotes their connections with other students. Furthermore, students engage in the higher-level thinking skills of analysis and synthesis of information.

It is important to mention that although scholarly research supporting the benefits of using wikis in educational settings is insufficient, that lack of evidence is not evidence that wikis do not work (Teehan, 2010). What it does indicate is that more research is needed (Teehan, 2010). In support of using wikis in educational settings, Teehan (2010) aptly asserts, “Wikis will not guarantee perfection, but they do promise participation in the learning process” (p. 45). I agree.

Furthermore, wikis are easily accessible for students. Sites such as wikispaces.com make wikis available to students absolutely free. Of course, this assumes that students have access to a computer and a high speed internet connection, which all students do not have. However, most schools and districts have computer labs available for students. So, with proper planning, the use of wikis can be incorporated into course curriculum. 

Lesson Design Project Update

My lesson design project will be a mathematics lesson, more specifically geometry, which will incorporate elements of inquiry or exploration and collaboration. The goal of the lesson will be having what the students use what they already know about proportions to determine the relationships between corresponding sides of similar triangles and use those relationships to solve a real world problem.

The inquiry or exploration element will be conducted using Geogebra, a visualization software. Although I was not able to use Geogebra to illustrate the relationship between the unit circle and trigonometric functions – due to my own inexperience with the software – it will more than serve the purpose of this lesson. I had originally intended to conduct the inquiry/exploration element using Cabri Jr., a visualization app that can be loaded onto Texas Instruments (TI) calculators. However, Geogebra offers much better graphics and a faster user-interface. The inquiry/exploration element will need to be completed during classroom time to ensure that all of my students have access to the technology.

For the collaboration element, I had hoped to use Knowledge Forum 4.8 which is a knowledge-building computer environment or community. However, after exploring Knowledge Forum I discovered that there is a cost associated with the technology. Unfortunately, neither I nor the department I work in has the funds to purchase a license. This puts the availability out of the reach of my students. Therefore, I will use an alternate technology for the collaboration element, such as wikispaces or Google docs.

Classroom Tools - Knowledge Forum

People must know how to transform individual ideas into collective knowledge. Those that are able to do so are more successful in their endeavors. Groups that are able to do so are called knowledge-building communities. The key components of such communities are: every individual contributes to a growing body of information; the creation of new knowledge is everyone's most important work; and shared knowledge leads to innovation and growth.

Knowledge Forum is intended to create just such an environment. “Knowledge Forum is an electronic group workspace designed to support the process of knowledge building. With Knowledge Forum, any number of individuals and groups can share information, launch collaborative investigations, and build networks of new ideas…together.” Knowledge Forum shifts the focus from emphasis on individual learning to the building of group knowledge... In Knowledge Forum, the emphasis changes from the completion of tasks to the continual improvement of ideas. Ideas are at the center of a knowledge building discussion.

Below are a few of the features that I found especially noteworthy. These diagrams and captions were taken from the Knowledge Forum website:

Users contribute their ideas in Knowledge Forum in the form of text, graphics, movies, or attachments.

Within a note, scaffolds help users frame and present their ideas to the community. Scaffolds can be customized and changed to suit different purposes and groups.

These ideas then become the objects of discourse within the community. Users can build on, reference, or annotate each other’s ideas. The ideas in the database become connected and grow.

Users frame groups of ideas in a visual context called a View. An idea can be placed in any number of views, allowing the idea to be framed in various contexts.

In a knowledge building community, ideas are continually evolving and improving. Knowledge Forum provides the tools to organize and synthesize these ideas. As ideas grow and change, they can be revised, combined, and reorganized.

            Unfortunately, Knowledge Forum must be purchased. Different pricing options are available but the prices were not provided on the website in the Order Now! section. The different pricing options allow multiple purchase levels including single professor purchase, small group purchase or university department licenses.

            Apart from the features I displayed above, a wiki could accomplish the same tasks as Knowledge Forum. The benefit to using a wiki is the cost; wikis are free. Therefore, for my purposes, I will utilize wikis with my students.