Wikis in the Classroom

What is a Wiki?

Wikis in Education

            As the web continues to grow and more and more information becomes available online, it is essential that students can analyze and manage that information (Richardson, 2010). According to Teehan (2010):

Wikis can impose structure to the available resources to help us make some order of the chaos of the Internet. Once the relevant information is organized, then we can use higher-level thinking skills to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize the information, which is education’s ultimate goal. (p.41)

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.

Wikis in My Classroom

Believe it or not, wikis can be a very effective collaborative tool in a mathematics classroom. Seeing that wikis serve several purposes, such as resource library, collaboration tool, communication tool, organize and store files, publishing resource, etc. (Teehan, 2010), there is incredible freedom in the range of uses in the classroom. Being able to see or think beyond the typical uses of wikis in the past creates almost endless opportunities for almost any classroom and any content, even mathematics.

            I have created a resource library in my classroom. This resource library serves as an archive of class notes and assignments and makes them available to students at any time from anywhere (link to my webpage). This also serves as a communication tool to keep parents up to date with assignments the content their children are learning. Of course, I must use district provided software but the concept could easily be applied using a wiki and be equally effective.

            Many of my students do not have someone at home that can help them with their math homework. That provides a challenge when I assign homework because I am not available to help them after school hours. However, small group wikis could be used as a peer tutoring vehicle which I could monitor and even offer help when a group is stuck on a particular problem.

References:

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin press.

Teehan, K. (2010). Wikis: The Educator's Power Tool. Santa Barbara, California:

Linworth.

Educational Blogging

Blogging in the Classroom

            If used appropriately, Web 2.0 technology, namely blogs (weblogs), can be, not only, a teaching/learning resource for any classroom, at any grade level, and for any content but also an exceptionally effective strategy based on constructivist theories of teaching and learning (Loertscher & Richardson, 2010; Deng & Yuen, 2011). Students collaboratively create content and share their products with learners around the world, which then becomes a part of the wider body of knowledge about a given subject (Loertscher & Richardson, 2010; Deng & Yuen, 2011).

            Furthermore, Loertscher & Richardson (2010) outlines six practical benefits of using blogs which make them appealing to many educators. These benefits include: 1) increased student motivation from assigning work that is relevant beyond the classroom, (2) opportunities for collaborative assignments with classes across the country or across the world, (3) organized archives of completed work facilitate reflecting, referencing, and searching, (4) different learning styles are supported giving all students a “voice” to communicate thoughts and ideas thus increasing participation, (5) enhanced student knowledge in a particular subject matter, and (6) students are prepared to analyze and manage more information by developing research, organization, and synthesis skills.

            It should be noted that Deng & Yuen (2011) consider research related to blogs and pedagogy under-developed; therefore, they hypothesized four areas in education that blogs would support. The four areas they considered are self-expression, self-reflection, social interaction, and reflective dialogue. Still, Loertscher & Richardson (2010) and Deng & Yuen (2011) agree that using blogs for education are a means not of merely communicating but of connecting with others that students can learn from.

            The table below can be used as a guide to effectively utilizing blogs as instructional strategies. The goal would be to have students posting blogs at the highest level. Blogging is a “new literacy” (Richardson, 2010) for many students and therefore implies that it is a learning process. Students will need time to develop their blogging skills. It will also be necessary to consider the grade level of the students and the purpose of the blogs.

Activity	Assessment
Posting assignments	Not blogging
Journaling i.e., “This is what I did today.”	Not blogging
Posting links	Not blogging
Posting links with descriptive annotation i.e., “This site is about…”	Simple blogging depending on depth of description
Posting links with analysis that gets into the meaning of the content being linked	Simple blogging
Reflective, metacognitive writing on practice without links	Complex writing, simple blogging
Posting links with analysis and synthesis that articulate a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind	Legitimate blogging
Extended analysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links, and comments	Complex blogging

Note. Adapted from "Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms, third edition" by W. Richardson, 2010. Copyright 2010 Corwin press.

Blogging and Pedagogy

References

Deng, L., & Yuen, H.K. (2011). Towards a framework for educational affordances of blogs. Computers & Education, 56(2011), 441-451.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin press.

iGeneration?

The assumption that an entire generation can defined by their technology and media usage is rash at best and racially and economically biased at worst, especially when labeling a generation the “iGeneration” (Rosen, 2011) due to the popularity of technological gadgets. If that is the case then why not call my generation – Generation X – the “Walkman Generation” or the “Cable TV Generation”? Why not call the Baby Boomer generation the “Television Generation”?

First of all, the use of computers – desktop or laptop – the internet, and internet technology is not cheap; therefore, it is not universally accessible to all students regardless of their popularity. Furthermore, technology statistics can be misleading. For example, a study by Wells & Lewis (2006) reported that 100% of public schools and 94% of classrooms had internet access; in addition, the student-to-computer ratio was a low as 3.8:1. However, working in a school with a high population economically disadvantaged students, I can attest that, although all classrooms have internet access, the majority of the classrooms have only one computer and students do not have access to those computers. Many of my students do not own cell phones and even fewer have smartphones. That is not to say that these students are not technology savvy, but technology and media use cannot be divorced from technology and media access.

Achievement is connected to opportunity and opportunity means accessibility. Research has linked the educational achievement gap in mathematics of economically disadvantaged and ethnic students to an opportunity gap experienced by this same demographic of students. Flores (2007) maintains that an opportunity gap exists because these students do not have equitable access to a quality education; data indicates disparities in access to quality teaching and funding. Lack of funding necessarily impacts access to and quality of technology available to students. Of course, opportunity does not guarantee achievement but without similar opportunities should we expect similar outcomes? Should we expect similar characteristics? Should we expect similar behavior? I do not have an answer because this problem does not have a simple solution.

We are responsible for providing our students with a quality education and technology is definitely a means of doing so. However, let us always keep in mind that our students do not have equitable access to technology. Therefore it is our responsibility to employ a variety of methods to ensure that learning is taking place. Do not get me wrong, I love technology. I also believe that, “the smartphone, the internet, and everything technological are not ‘tools’ at all – they simply are” (Rosen, 2011, p. 12).

References

Flores, A. (2007). Examining Disparities in Mathematics Education: Achievement Gap or Opportunity Gap?. High School Journal, 91(1), 29-42.

Rosen, L. (2011). Teaching the iGeneration. Educational Leadership, 68 (5), 10-15.

Wells, J., & Lewis, L. (2006). Internet access in U.S. public schools and classrooms: 1994 – 2005 (NCES 2007 – 020). Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.