Beyond Textbooks: Writing Your Own with a Class Wiki
Monday, 1 January 2007 Clay Burell 
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I’m so inspired, in fact, that I’m flattering him by stealing his idea and adapting it a bit for my own uses–especially his class wiki. (Yes, I left a comment on his blog informing and thanking him, and giving him this blog address so he could steal in return. I expect he’ll want to know what I learn as I explore his idea, and adapt it!)
Check mine out here, for my grade 9 World Literature/Humanities class–and check back often, since it’s a work in progress, to see it grow. That’s what wikis do!
(I’m still learning Wikispaces, but it’s not hard at all. Educators get a free private account–as many as they want–until Wikispaces gives away 100,000 of them. Get them while they last! Even if you’re not ready to use it yet.)
- French Revolution Writing to Learn "Ant Farm" Wiki Open to the Public
- International "Flat World Nights" Blog-Book/Wiki Creative Writing Project Open Invitation
- Yet Another Student Voice on Wiki-Learning: "It helped a lot to improve my writing skills…."
- New Literacies in Classroom Action: A Middle School Social Studies Wiki
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Tags: collaboration, teaching, web 2.0/ read-write web, wiki Print This Post
No. 1 — January 1st, 2007 at 9:52 am
Professor Jim Groom writes:
Clay,
Wow, this is great stuff -it is reassuring and exciting to think some one has found my discussions about this stuff useful. I am looking forward to tracking your progress with Wikispaces -a tool I discovered through your blog, thank you-for my class went pretty well but their are some things I would have to rethink and re-examine. TheMediawiki installation worked really well for the English 101 class. In fact, far better than the student blogs which in other classes I had quite the opposite effect. I would be interested to hear how Wikispaces deals with permissions, because one of my concerns with MediaWiki was creating pages that only one student and myself could have access to for conferencing, comments, grades,etc. I was able to lock all this stuff up in the MediaWiki, but it would be really nice if the permissions were more granular and didn’t require so much hacking of the installation.
As for why I call the class blog a portal, well because it is really a focal site for the class to come to. The blog posts highlight assignments, announcements, and various other events, but the link to the class wiki, the students blogs on the sidebar, and the del.icio.us feeds make this space more like a class portal for information and access rather than a “blog” or a “website.” It is a central place to go for info about the class, and such a space really comes in useful during the fifteen weeks of a semester -there were times when I depended upon this space to teach my classes and communicate with 20 other people from over 4,000 miles away.
Best,
Jim
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No. 2 — January 1st, 2007 at 9:53 am
Re: Wikispaces
Nice to hear from you, Jim! I’ve been experimenting with student blogs linked to our class blog (“portal,” as you call it–I guess because I’m working with a 15-y-o audience I choose simpler language, though I agree “portal” emphasizes the “come here first,” “gateway” sort of meaning that “class blog” doesn’t).
Search for a blog called “fischbowl” (note the “c”) for some interesting uses of blogs for student writing, reflection, discussion. I’m going to steal from him too!
Like you, blogging has caught on with some students, and not with others. But isn’t that the nature of writing generally–some of us love it, some of us probably never will. This realism comforts me when my idealistic side focuses on “those who don’t spark” on the blogs.
I like what you’re doing with the Wiki/blog combo. I’m going to make my students get a Bloglines account and subscribe to sites of their choice and read/write about that on blogs. Some will yelp, but that’s inevitable with new technologies. Months later their views will surely be different. I know it took me a few months to become an feed-reader, and now I’m exponentially more informed than I’ve ever been.
Extensive, free voluntary reading via Bloglines. That’s my strategy for improving students vocab, fluency, reading, and writing. You’ll be able to peek in whenever you want when we launch that in early January.
I would be interested to hear how Wikispaces deals with permissions, because one of my concerns with MediaWiki was creating pages that only one student and myself could have access to for conferencing, comments, grades,etc. I was able to lock all this stuff up in the MediaWiki, but it would be really nice if the permissions were more granular and didn’t require so much hacking of the installation.
I just emailed Wikispaces help with your question. I want to know too. I asked PBwiki about that (another good online wiki, but not free to educators), and they said nyet. So we’ll see what Wikispaces has to say.
Okay, enough rambling. Oh, but to be social, my http://www.bloglines.com/blog/Mysterbee has education feeds full of discussions like this. Feel free to check out the blogroll. The blog itself is defunct–BL doesn’t format with macs, so I discontinued. But the education feeds, again, are often powerful.
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No. 3 — February 14th, 2008 at 1:13 am
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