Wiki's
I initially thought that I would never use wikis, in the Media center. However, as I’ve read different articles on wiki’s I realize that they can be useful to a media specialist in many different ways. For example, one of the jobs of a media specialist is to collaborate with teachers on the curriculum, a wiki’s would be a great tool to post informational sites pertaining to the curricular unit. In addition, this would be an excellent tool, where the media specialist and grade level teachers, could actually post their ideas and thought before they all met together. This would allow teachers and media specialist to brainstorm at their convenience and post idea before they ever meet. This would help save time when they actually meet together.
In order for Wikis to be successful teachers have to be open to the idea of new technology and fully understand how it can benefit them. Many are overwhelmed with their workload as it is. In order for Wiki to be successful teachers need to receive a brief tutorial on the tool, the benefits of the tool, and how it has worked for other schools in the past.
Wiki’s have been criticized over the years. For one, the information can be compromised by others. To overcome this problem wiki’s can be limited to teachers and administrators. Furthermore, wiki’s could be broken down by grade levels and subjects. For example, a fourth grade wiki could be created for fourth grade teachers to collaborate on the upcoming unit or address issues or concerns they are having teaching the current unit. Another criticism of wiki’s according to the article Seven Things You should Know about Wiki’s is that a Wiki can be biased and represent the opinions of the authors who creates them.
7 comments:
Hello,
I think that wikis are very powerful for collaborative curriculum development, and our fairly large school district in Alaska has such an effort underway.
After two years of use, we have had over 10,000 pages of teacher- and student-created curriculum standards and related supporting content posted, and over 3,000 files uploaded.
The site is open to ANYONE inside or outside our district, so feel free to use any of our content under the Creative Commons License we use...or to contribute. Use is increasing again this year, and we are starting to collaborate with other districts this way.
In fact, we also use Wikipedia as both a resource, and as a student publishing outlet for demonstrating high level understanding of a topic.
Good luck in your efforts, and feel free to contact me or or District Media Librarian, Darla.
John Concilus
http://wiki.bssd.org/
jconcilus@bssd.org
Alecia,
I agree with your statement about wikis being a great collaboration tool for teachers to create and organize their curriculum. Wikis have been around for quite a while, yet they are just coming in to the educational arena. Technology is what's happening and it is here to stay. Teachers definitely need to become equipped to manuver and operate the wiki. Wikis may have some negativity, but overall they are very successful when it comes to collaboration in the school setting.
Alecia
You are correct, wikis would be a great tool for collaboration between teachers. I also love your idea of the media specialist creating a wiki to collaborate with a grade level or units they are going to teach. As you stated, teachers would have to be taught how to use the wiki for it to work. If you as the media specialist get teachers interested in using wikis, it could be a good tool for collaboration.
I loved your ideas about teacher collaboration with the media specialist. For me, this type of Wiki seems to be the most do-able. I think this would also serve as a wonderful way to introduce the staff to using a Wiki and may encourage some to use it with their students.
As a classroom teacher, I definitely would appreciate being able to share ideas and maybe even solutions BEFORE attending a meeting. I can't imagine the number of times that I've groaned "this could've have been addressed in an email." Wikis could definitely help to alleviate time constraints.
I think the hardest part about wikis is getting over the initial hurdle--convincing teachers that it will help their students learn. After that it's a matter of finding the time to do a project in a different way. I was just saying the other day how my job, and all teachers, has changes dramatically over time. We not only have different work, we have more work.
Alecia, the collaboration piece of the med spec’s job is one we often find difficult to manage beyond locating and pulling materials for the teacher. A wiki is an excellent way to collaborate with colleagues. Managing our time to get the most out of it is an important element of our collaboration. I agree that a wiki with links could allow meaningful dialogue for the stakeholders. Your observation of the fact that wikis can be manipulated to express opinions rather than facts can be used as a tool for teaching students to consider the veracity of the source, seek out information from multiple sources, analyzing that information, and synthesizing their own ideas. Paul
Post a Comment