Blog post 13: Helping a Teacher use Wikis

Identify problems that you observed in the scenario:

Jane had the right idea of using Wikis and implement it into her classroom, but it appears that she lacked the knowledge and experience to start implement it successfully.  Jane also lacked organization in her project, she should have obtained more information or help using links on how to organize projects.  Jane should have placed the students into groups of two instead of three or four because when you have too many students in a group, it can lead into to many problems such as the students not agreeing with each other.  Next, Jane should have placed them into groups before advising the students to generate a research question about water.  It would have helped Jane to provide some information and modeling on how to research for different things to the students, giving them an idea of what she is looking for and a list of good research materials and websites they can visit.  It also appears that Jane failed to provide a rubric to assist the students in the project and essay, and she also failed to assign advise each group to assign different roles in reference to who is doing what, this would have avoided a lot of problems with students not participating or doing everything in the project.  Jane should have also advised the students that they were going to be reviewing each others work, and that it will all be done with good respect and they would each talk to each other about editing or deleting their work so there would not be any hard feelings or anyone getting angry.  

Prioritize the Problems you identified:  Generate some possible solutions for the top 3 problems:  

Reading this problem scenario was very interesting, I did see a lot of problems with what occurred in Jane's classroom.  If I had to prioritize the problems I identified it would be in the following sequence.

1.  "Only one student was involved in writing the essay."  This appears to be most important to me because there is obviously no structure and cooperation within these groups, each group was probably not given a rubric or instructions on how to assign each group member an assignment for the project.  

2.  "Some of them just copied information directly from other websites. In another group, students embedded attractive pictures and videos in their wiki, but the content of the pictures and videos had nothing to do with their research questions."  Plagiarism and learning how and where to look for information is crucial, this is what these groups are going to base their project on.  Jane could provide the students information about plagiarism, and how they can cite their resources properly.   If they are mislead at the beginning, they will be working on the wrong project and will not identify how to research for the correct information.   

3.  "Some groups focused on making their wiki look pretty, changing formats frequently, but paid little attention to the content."  The first thing that students need to understand is the content of their project, work from there to make sure they align their project according to what the lesson is about.  Jane could also provide a rubric as to how she wants the project to go, what she expects in order for the students to obtain the best grade possible.  

4.  "She observed tensions regarding ownership and credit."  Students need to take pride in what they are doing, gain responsibility for their work and learn at the same time.  A group is also supposed to work together, share ideas and give credit to all that in the group with the finished project.  

5,  "Other students made only minor editing."  Editing each others work is a great way for students to see look at each others work, edit and criticize it.  Students that edit their peers work can also see what they probably are doing wrong or right, gain some ideas and share ideas with each other.  

6.  "Student became upset when he found out his entry was deleted by his peer."  Students need to be able to take criticism and positive comments, even if it means their work will be deleted.  Groups need to collaborate and agree with the editing and deleting of each others work.  

7.  "One student said "I want to cry when others changed my page!"  Students  should be advised that they should not take criticism too serious, it is a way of growing and improving their work.  Sometimes your peers can better see what you are writing, and they can assist you or give you credit for your work.  

8.  "As a result, students ended up writing their own paragraphs separately, but were reluctant to revise the work of others."  This is a result of students not working together and failing to collaborate with each other, assure that students all agree with editing and deleting their work as a group, and you will avoid students not willing to work as a group. 

Add at least 3 links that can back up your ideas or can help Jane to learn more about Wikis:

1.  Wikispaces Classroom:  

This link assists teachers to organize projects, monitor their progress, have students collaborate, organize classroom experience, and online and remote learning.  This link gives the teacher the ability to manage their students projects, monitor their projects, have the students collaborate their learning and share ideas.  The best part of this link is that it's free, so the teacher and students can all use it.  

2.  PBWorks:

This is another link that Jane could use to create a classroom and have access to create assignments projects and keep track of her students, they can collaborate and share ideas as well as submit their work in this link.  This is also a free link they are able to use and they can even connect with people all over the nation and world if they desired.  

3.  Wikipedia.org:  

This link is a great source for information, Jane can use this to have the students use to research information they need for their project.