One benefit I noticed while perusing the educational wikis is that the wiki allows students to publish significantly more material than they ever could on paper. The more quality work students do, the more they learn. The Holocaust Wiki Project is stunning. It allows students to combine history with imagination (creativity), explore decision making, experience cause and effect, and share the final projects (choose-your-own-ending books) with classmates, teachers, friends, parents, and the entire online global community.
Also, several of the sights were privacy protected in one form or another. The first thing I noticed when I signed into the 1001 Flat World Tales site was a lock at the top, left-hand corner of the page notifying the visitor of safety precautions. Also, the Pay It Forward wiki had specified privacy; only subscribers to the feed could view all of the updates to the wiki. I am not sure if subscribing can be controlled, but I imagine that such a function would be beneficial.
While I didn't run into many of the cons mentioned in several critiques of wikis, I did notice a few annoying and distracting advertisements, hard to navigate sites, and discussions that were near impossible to contribute to, let alone follow.
I like how the wikis can include other media such as videos and podcasts. The poignant video for Pay It Forward peaked my interest and encouraged me to continue exploring the site. However, other media can have the opposite effect. For example, the 1001 Flat World Tales site forced me to listen to a podcast before navigating the site; worse yet, all of my Internet windows closed due to the complications with the podcast.
Overall, I think the wiki is a great educational tool when there is an instructor to oversee the site and bring structure/organization to the project.
P.S. - All of the sites I visited were aesthetically pleasing enough... (another con disproved).
3 comments:
Hi Lorax! I really have to agree with you. The Wiki is a great educational tool for a classroom composition, but does need an instructor or facilitator to make sure the content is organized and cohesive!
Ellen, I agree that the teacher's role as facilitator is very important. These tools give us an opportunity to engage students in exciting learning activities. We need to provide guidance without setting guidelines that are too restrictive.
I wanted to get back to you about twitter. Go to twitter.com... create a free account and search out my twitter. You will find an on-going discussion on technology and other things... neat collaboration. By the way, you have a cool looking blog and love the name Lorax. (great Dr. Suess character)
Karen
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