Design Experiment 4: PBWorks and Wikis
Wikis are vital to the information superhighway. Most of the time, they get a bad rap because they can be edited by anyone, and therefore, are susceptible to erroneous information. However, the reality is...they were one of the founding reasons for the existence of the internet. The primary impetus for the connectivity of all our computers and servers was to share information, and so a wiki is an ideal way of compressing that information into one place. Obviously, Wikipedia (which is basically an online encyclopedia) is one of the most obvious examples of our collective knowledge. While Wikipedia contains information about essentially everything under the sun, they are other versions of wikis that are much smaller in scope, tending to focus on just one specific subject, such as knitting, bird watching, or, for our purposes, education.
PBWorks is one such wiki-themed website which teachers can use to organize their learning environment. They can work collaboratively with other teachers, to determine the best path for the students in a particular subject, grade, or skill level. The teacher can create as many pages as they want (up to 2 Gbs) in their PBWorks account, and they can connect those pages with hyperlinks. If they choose to use the wiki as a classroom activity, they can give the wiki link to their students, and the student can access it free of charge without logging in. The student can access it by phone, tablet, or computer. PBWorks is a very easy-to-use online application, which doesn't require any sort of HTML knowledge; you basically edit the wikis just as you would edit Microsoft Word.
When I logged into PBWorks, it had a basic set of temporary pages that you could edit in any way you please. If you specify "education" when you first set up your account, it gives you these templates:
Assignments Meeting Agenda
Activity Tracking SideBar
Course Syllabus
FrontPage
Here is an example of the what your Wiki looks like being edited, and the format of the page...
As for content that could be taught in a wiki, well, there is no shortage, really, if you are creative enough. A lot of vocabulary, sentence structure, essay writing, style and composition elements could be taught in a lesson involving wikis. You could also teach research methodology and the importance of looking up facts and sources before adding them to wiki pages. Or, you could simply teach the basics of leadership, organization, cooperation, and teamwork. After all, anytime you collaborate on things online, there will always be an initial hesitance and awkwardness before things get rolling.
Learning theories that could be applied to working in wikis are: constructivism, and collaborative learning. Students are building the wiki online in a social constructivist way (even though it is not face-to-face), and they are cooperating in a manner that is very akin to project-based learning. The teacher can, and should, be a facilitator in these projects, either as an online moderator, or to guide the students before the project begins.
An example of a good project you could have students work on in PBWorks, or any wiki site, for that manner, might be to assign a class to build a small wiki of five or six pages. If there are, say, 30 students, you could divide the class up into 6 groups of 5 people each. Just to pull a rabbit out of a hat, you could have a wiki on "the six flags that flew over Texas". Each group could do research on how long that particular country held rights to the future state of Texas, how they acquired it, who the prominent figures were in that time period, and other interesting historical tidbits. When each groups page is added to the wiki, it becomes a mini-story on the history of Texas as a whole.
Overall, I think wiki sites are good for education and online learning. The cautious view of them is warranted, but in this day and age, you simply have to cross-reference multiple sites to ensure you are getting legitimate information. You are just as likely to get misinformation from a news site, as you are a wiki, so use your best judgement!
PBWorks is one such wiki-themed website which teachers can use to organize their learning environment. They can work collaboratively with other teachers, to determine the best path for the students in a particular subject, grade, or skill level. The teacher can create as many pages as they want (up to 2 Gbs) in their PBWorks account, and they can connect those pages with hyperlinks. If they choose to use the wiki as a classroom activity, they can give the wiki link to their students, and the student can access it free of charge without logging in. The student can access it by phone, tablet, or computer. PBWorks is a very easy-to-use online application, which doesn't require any sort of HTML knowledge; you basically edit the wikis just as you would edit Microsoft Word.
When I logged into PBWorks, it had a basic set of temporary pages that you could edit in any way you please. If you specify "education" when you first set up your account, it gives you these templates:
Assignments Meeting Agenda
Activity Tracking SideBar
Course Syllabus
FrontPage
Here is an example of the what your Wiki looks like being edited, and the format of the page...
As for content that could be taught in a wiki, well, there is no shortage, really, if you are creative enough. A lot of vocabulary, sentence structure, essay writing, style and composition elements could be taught in a lesson involving wikis. You could also teach research methodology and the importance of looking up facts and sources before adding them to wiki pages. Or, you could simply teach the basics of leadership, organization, cooperation, and teamwork. After all, anytime you collaborate on things online, there will always be an initial hesitance and awkwardness before things get rolling.
Learning theories that could be applied to working in wikis are: constructivism, and collaborative learning. Students are building the wiki online in a social constructivist way (even though it is not face-to-face), and they are cooperating in a manner that is very akin to project-based learning. The teacher can, and should, be a facilitator in these projects, either as an online moderator, or to guide the students before the project begins.
An example of a good project you could have students work on in PBWorks, or any wiki site, for that manner, might be to assign a class to build a small wiki of five or six pages. If there are, say, 30 students, you could divide the class up into 6 groups of 5 people each. Just to pull a rabbit out of a hat, you could have a wiki on "the six flags that flew over Texas". Each group could do research on how long that particular country held rights to the future state of Texas, how they acquired it, who the prominent figures were in that time period, and other interesting historical tidbits. When each groups page is added to the wiki, it becomes a mini-story on the history of Texas as a whole.
Overall, I think wiki sites are good for education and online learning. The cautious view of them is warranted, but in this day and age, you simply have to cross-reference multiple sites to ensure you are getting legitimate information. You are just as likely to get misinformation from a news site, as you are a wiki, so use your best judgement!
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