How Are Wikis Really Being Used in the K-12 Classroom?

How Are Wikis Really Being Used in the K-12 Classroom?

Interesting research that I would like to see the details on. I would say that the conclusion falls in line with what I have seen in many districts. We've worked hard in ours, but the collaborative aspects definitely are not as popular as 1) the teacher using it to share links, lesson plans, resources, or homework, or 2) the students using it to make pages or post files that are rarely the result of much collaboration. We have three (draft) resources designed to get at that (slowly):

Wiki Workshop:
http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Wiki+Workshop

Affordances & Constraints Exercise
http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Affordances+&+Constraints+Chart

App Taskonomy (we modify it for wiki uses instead of apps)
http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Apps+Taskonomy

It has been and will continue to be a long, slow road ...

iPads or MacBooks?

I just posted this response to Jeff Utecht's post, Why I still want MS and HS to Have a Laptop.

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Currently, students in my classes have primary access to Windows machines, but they also have access to Mac computers and iPads. We are not currently a 1:1.

If I were offered a 1:1 with MacBooks or iPads and everything else were equal, I personally would definitely pick the MacBooks. However, if I could use the difference in funding to pay for additional professional learning community time (which includes curriculum redevelopment time) among those “teaching” with the iPads, I’d probably opt for the iPads. I would also choose the iPads over Windows XP machines. I’d have to think carefully between the iPads and Windows 7 machines. If I were choosing for the whole school, I might even choose the iPads over MacBooks even if everything else were equal.

Why? One reason is that I think your conclusion about iPads as consumption devices is inaccurate. (“At the end of the day the iPad is designed for the consumption of information.”) I do believe Apple designs them to be excellent consumption devices and those features may appear to stand out. But, they are also excellent production devices. In some cases, even better than MacBooks.

You mention wanting students to create apps, videos, and music. It is true that iPads cannot be used to create apps that run on iPads. (I’d add that they can’t run Scratch here too.) Related side question, what percentage of your students are coding apps on their MacBooks? But, iPads can be used to shoot and edit excellent videos with just the built in camera and iMovie or iStop motion. And, with GarageBand, among other apps, students can create excellent music or audio podcasts. In facts, my students often create better (technically) videos and audio recordings in less time on the iPad. Granted, they may not have all the special fx, but that’s rarely what makes video or audio go viral. It’s much more often about the content and a little less due to the quality of the original footage/audio. Here’s a link to an great example –http://www.ipadacademic.com/education/lesson-plans/animating-and-explaining-cell-division – though it might not go viral.

With their ease of use, stability and the ability of students to complete quality projects often in less time, I’ve seen teachers in my school and nationally during summer pd sessions take to these devices much more rapidly than laptops, even MacBooks. If teachers will get (allow) students to use iPads to produce more projects than with MacBooks, then I need to take the iPad over the more flexible and powerful MacBook.

That’s not to say I view iPads without their definite drawbacks, which I lay out in a little more detail here (draft). Link to Affordances & Constraints Chart –http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Affordances+%26+Constraints+-+iPad

We also need to make sure our PLCs are focusing on quality uses of either device. Working through the following activity with teachers is a start in that direction, whether using MacBooks, iPads, or other devices. Link to Apps Taskonomy Activity for Educators –http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Apps+Taskonomy

Check out iPad Creative to see how others are using iPads in phenomenal ways!http://www.ipadcreative.com/

iBooks Author

So, if I am a professor (or maybe a teacher in some situations) and I can assign my own textbook as a required reading, could I make more money if I have the students purchase a self-published version? Apple gets 30% and I get 70%. The publisher gets 0%, they've been cut out. The students also can't resell it.

But, I can't sell my book anywhere else? What about the students who don't have an iPad?

The Rise of the New Groupthink

The Rise of the New Groupthink by Susan Cain

Well worth considering, but why is it always one or the other? BalancEd! Wouldn't it be nice for students to learn skills for a range of situations and how to reflect on them to determine if a different approach might be better for themselves or their group? Let's mix Cain, Shirky, Vygotsky, etc. to come up with a toolbox teachers can use to fit the context of their subject, students, and classroom. There are some hints in that direction earlier in the article. By her conclusion, it seems Cain would agree,

"... we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time."

For another take on this article, check out, Does Solitude Enhance Creativity? A Critique of Susan Cain’s Attack on Collaboration

Quilting Bee, Design Studio, & Game Party

I appreciate Donald Schön and John Seley Brown's metaphor of an architecture studio. Watching my own class in a somewhat open environment, I'm wondering if other metaphors offer important elements to consider. What aspects from a quilting bee, sewing circle, video game party, book club, etc. might help students and teachers conceptualize an engaging learning "space"? Which aspects work only or best in face to face environments, which can work in virtual? Can they work asynchronously?

"Flipped" Classroom?

Is a truly "flipped" classroom one where the students consume the lesson content at home in video/audio format and then do the "homework" in the classroom? Or, is a truly "flipped" classroom one in which the students are doing the teaching?

Best New Blog of 2011 - Not Just A Teacher

Best New Blog of 2011 - Not Just A Teacher - Pauline Roberts

John Seely Brown: Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production

This video by John Seely Brown discusses many of the elements at the heart of BCS' Engage program.

John Seely Brown: Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production

• Have to foster the imagination first
• Create - Reflect - Share
• sharing - create peer based learning
• Studio Learning Environment
• multi age learning community
• best way to learn something is to teach it - Kids teach each other
• critique - Need to be open to criticism (from self, peers, and others)
• work in progress is public
• critiques are public
• Tinkering
• with Information
• with Knowledge
• with concrete things
• networked Tinkering with other people's stuff
• you have to test what you build
• authority comes from testing what you build and whether it works and is as good as it could be
• Allows us to bootstrap our own knowledge
• maybe - kids identities will come from what they have created AND others have built on
• Technology
• enables us to build distributed communities of practice
• allow you to create and to remix

Autodidacts

The drumbeat is getting louder for society to offer alternatives to traditional schooling. If you study the history of education, the desire for change seems anything but new. Is the latest round of ideas actually different? Will the tools of today make these efforts any more successful?

TEDxAtlanta - Anya Kamenetz - DIY U
TEDxAtlanta - Gever Tulley - Reimagining Education
Daniel Willingham -  Why Don't Students Like School

Low Floor, Wide Walls, & High Ceiling

Technology has changed so much in the 20+ years I have been teaching! While most of what is available seems very similar in output to earlier tools, the biggest changes have been in ease of use (low floor) and integration (wider walls). Put those two together with greater/cheaper access and collaboration and what is possible has greatly increased (high ceiling). 


What toolkit would I recommend these days? Well, before getting into that, all the tools in the world won't get you very far without brave, collaborative, creative, thoughtful (reflective), and critical students. Assuming you have created a culture for such kids I'd recommend:

1. A MacBook, NetBook, or iPad to create content and access all those web 2.0 tools
2. Wiki - An amazingly flexible tool that allows my students to easily integrate text, images, audio, video, and widgets galore. My students are the producers instead of just consumers! Currently I prefer Wikispaces, though I would be quite happy with several others
3. Moodle - For the forum tool alone it is worthwhile. It also allows for integration of the elements mentioned above, but the nested nature of the discussion helps my students follow the conversation, and therefore encourages it.
4. Multimodal tools
1. GarageBand or Audacity - Audio recording, not just for the students who have difficulty writing, for anyone who wants another form of communication that offers its own rich set of options and strengths
2. Flip Camera - Get video into your web 2.0 world
3. Still Camera - And images too! It's time to move beyond clip art and other people's photos. Let the kids bring their world into the web 2.0 world.
5. MyWebspiration.com or Inspiration - Graphic organizers and concept maps offer students a deep way to demonstrate the connections in their knowledge.
6. iChat or Skype - Another way to bring the outside world in and to get our students heard in the outside world.
7. VoiceThread - Still learning this one, it may move up.

Related Link - http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/scratch/scratch-cacm.pdf (page 3)