‘Wigs and blokis’ Ideas for teaching and learning

Ruth Mason, Senior Learning Design OfficerTeacher Librarians Conference, November 2008

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Life in the 21st century

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Website links

Most of the important web links in this presentation are available from my del.icio.us account at:

http://delicious.com/lilythebud/wikis

Note

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website, which means it is designed to allow you to store and share bookmarks on the web, instead of inside your browser

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Key themes

■ What are wikis and blogs?

■ Why would teachers use them?

■ How could teachers use them?

■ Getting down and dirty

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One unknown

AIBE (the authenticated browsing system)

can impact on what sites are available.

Availability changes over time

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What is a blog?

■ the word is a contraction of “web log”

■ is a website, similar to a diary or journal

■ the owner and invited participants write their thoughts

■ can include text, images, voice, videos

■ 10 ways to use blogs

http://edublogs.org/10-ways-to-use-your-edublog-to-teach/

■ Edublogs handout

Example A blog from a librarian in USA containing discussions on blogs and other Web 2.0 tools

http://librarystream.wordpress.com/about-the-learn-more-series/

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An example of a blog

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A blog for teacher librarians mentioned in http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com/ available at http:

//teacherlibrarian.ning.com/

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What is wiki?

■ a web site that lets any visitor become a participant

■ a website where participants can create or edit the contents without any special technical knowledge or tools.

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Wikis

Idea behind wikis:

■ the knowledge of the group is greater than that of an individual

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Why would teachers use Wikis?

A wiki allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages (Wikipedia).

■ often used for collaborative projects where different people need to contribute

■ also great for creative writing tasks■ the wiki keeps track of each person's contribution as well as versions

■ contributors can add their own “pages”

■ can be public or private■ http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-

plain-english “7 Things” and Wiki FAQs Handouts

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Differences between blogs and wikis

Blogs:

■ A way for participants to express individual ideas and opinions by posting them on the blog

■ Others can comment on these ideas and opinions but cannot change what has been written

Wikis:

■ A more open structure ■ Others can make changes to what others have written

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Why use wikis and blogs in your teaching?

■ tools for students and teachers to collaborate and communicate

■ tools to collect evidence of participation

■ encourages higher order skills eg group work, problem solving

■ this technology is used by many of our students away from school

A tool has to go beyond "hey, cool" and contribute something useful. (George Siemens)

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Wikis – engaging and motivating

We are only a Year 3, and it is only the kids' own words and thoughts……... We love it, but it's only a very modest little wiki.

The big thing for me was that it involved the family in the child's learning and that it was motivating - they were much keener to research and write for the wiki than for their exercise books. It's that whole thing of purpose and audience.

(DET teacher, 1 August 2008)

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Class3ewikispaces.com

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Wikis – engaging and motivating

When Justin D'Ath sent them the email below, they were so excited. "HE thinks we are good writers!!" You'd have thought the Queen had emailed them... Justin was probably more exciting to them, actually.

Hi 3E

I'm really pleased you've all been enjoying my books. Hope you get to read ALL of them!

Your wiki is great!

Happy reading

Justin

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communityrights.wikispaces.com

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Science and technology camp wiki

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iwbteachers.wikispaces.com

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Copyright

■ http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/schoollibraries/assets/pdf/hbkcopy.pdf

■ http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/guidelines/info.html

recent amendments to the Act allow teachers to “use podcasts of programs that have been previously broadcast on free-to-air radio or television and made available on the broadcaster's website (eg, an episode of Behind the News or a Radio National program made available as a podcast on the ABC's website)”. Smartcopying

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Some Key References

■ Wikispaceshttp://wikispaces.com

■ Teachers first, wiki walk-through http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/

■ “7 Things You Should Know About” series http://www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495

■ Common Craft (plain English videos) http://www.commoncraft.com/

■ Copyright http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/guidelines/info.html

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Now it’s your turn to get down and dirty!

Go to the following website and join wikispaces

http://wikispaces.com

Then go to the wiki that I have set up for our workshop and have fun.

http://wikinewbies.wikispaces.com