Beyond School

Barbara at Dare to Dream, whose Photo-a-Day for Schools Flickr project found the flesh [spirit] willing but the body weak for me (sorry again, Barbara), asked this question to me in a recent post.

How can we encourage exploration and following interests with our students and still hold them to some kind of timeline? Clay, you are building a text with your students so how do you handle the time line?

My answer to her there became the most thorough description of my history class’ first wiki textbook project, “A Broken World: WW I to WW II,” that I decided to post my comment to her here. So here it is:

The wiki textbook project has not been difficult to manage at all, so far (but at the same time, it’s not a very student-centered project–the only choice students got was to choose which chapter of WWI to WWII history to turn into a textbook chapter). All students have drafted their re-write of the textbook chapter (paraphrasing skills, reading comprehension, writing), added multimedia (using del.icio.us searches, rss searches, etc–research skills), made a presentation (normally Powerpoint, but that’s fine, and they’re improving impressively at that, possibly because their slideshows are published for real audiences on the wiki), then given, with their partners, lectures to the class using their Powerpoints (speaking skills). I film the lectures, capture them in iMovie immediately after, and upload them to Google Video daily.

To keep the other students learning from these student-taught classes (rather than zoning out), they are quizzed each class on the content from the prior class’ lectures. (And yes, I do some post-mortem teacher lecturing after each student lecture to clarify points and model the “presentation as storytelling” approach I’m pushing them to learn. That is filmed and posted on the wiki too, which has interesting applications for semester exam reviews, next year’s classes, and general uses for world audiences as well.)

Finally, students self-assess their embedded lectures with a rubric my English dept colleagues made, and write goals for improvement for their follow-up lecture. They post these metacognitive skills-reflections on the discussion tab of their wiki page.

They’ll do the whole process again in a “Cold War” wiki textbook, and be graded for their lectures that time as an oral test grade (this first round is just a quiz grade for the lectures).

So the wiki textbook project is really traditional in terms of content, but offers a legacy product for future students with multimedia offerings a paper textbook obviously can’t offer.

Above all, my objectives for this project (like all my projects, really) are about literacy: reading, writing, speaking, listening, researching.

And collaborating.

Did I answer your question about time management? I get about 2 chapter lectures per 85 minute class from my students (though the over-achievers are going overboard, which is good and bad). The schedule fits what we’re doing.

I can’t imagine getting anything done, though, in a 55 minute class [Barbara's school's schedule]. Why?

* * *

For a look at one exemplary lecture, check out these two students’ lecture on the causes of World War I. Great Powerpoint, impressively clear and interesting lecture. Not bad for a ninth grader! (And we can’t wait to compare this to lectures we film when they’re seniors.)

If you like this post, please spread it: (But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)

1. Anonymous Student Feedback on Wiki "French Revolution Ant Farm Diaries" Project
2. Yet Another Student Voice on Wiki-Learning: "It helped a lot to improve my writing skills…."
3. This Wiki Stuff Gets Easier and Easier

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