Wiki's in the 'real world'

Throughout this course I have heard the term 'Wiki' being thrown around quite often. Not wanting to admit my ignorance, I chose to keep telling myself, "You probably wouldn't need to know this, this is for the computer literate members of the group", which certainly didn't include me!!

Next I see this dreaded word starting to appear in the forum topics. It was becoming glaringly obvious that I was going to have to know what a Wiki was, and how to set one up. So I thought: OK ..... Bring it on!

After engaging in the week 4 courseware, I was totally inspired by Clay Burrell's video on the Beyond School website because he confessed that 5 years ago he was basically in the same position as me when it came to ICT's. To hear how much he changed gave me some confidence that maybe I could too.

So I continued on and came to the 'Wiki' subheading and watched this you tube video, and now I'm a believer!



To my suprise, I created my first Wiki. (It's nothing flash at this stage I need to do more work on it yet) Since creating this Wiki I have been thinking of their place in a 21st century classroom to encourage student-centred learning. They would be a perfect tool for engaging the students in group projects and provide a flexible learning opportunity for project work within the classroom and outside of school. Teacher's can keep an eye on the project development to make sure the students are on track with their planning, they can even be shared globally if the need was there.


An example I thought of for the classroom which uses Kearsley & Shneiderman Learning Engagement Theory - Relate, Create, Donate would be:

Home economics students have been invited to join in "Whose School Kitchen Rules" competition where they provide a menu for judges and have to cook the food within a certain time frame. The school that provides the highest standard of food, wins white goods for their home economics room at school.

Relate: The students in a Home Economics class are to form groups of 4 and prepare a dinner party to showcase their cooking skills for their family, to gain real world feedback prior to the commencement of the competition.

Create: The students would set up a Wiki for their group and in it include separate pages for Menu, Shopping list for ingredients, Table decorations, Invitations, to do lists, Job distribution (who was preparing and cooking what), Time schedule (for preparation and cooking, so that meal would be delivered to guests on time).
Here students would be able to develop their ideas, and ensure all areas were taken care of.

Donate: The authentic product they developed would be a spectacular dinner party, organised perfectly (That's the desired outcome anyway!) and would be donated (to their family and friends) for real world feedback.

Photo courtesy of "Welcome to Peggy's Blog"

There is so many uses for Wiki's in group projects in schools, this is merely one of them. Their ease of use and easy setup make them a tool of choice for a wide age range of students. Wiki's encourage collaboration of ideas and choices for project work for students. They provide a flexible learning space for groups of students inside and outside the classroom. It even gives the shy/quiet learners a chance to express their ideas from within their comfort zone. All these factors together provide a more learner-centred, approach and mode 2 knowledge to creating authentic products, which we are strongly encouraging in the 21st century classroom. I see great potential for me to use these in my classroom (one day hopefully!)

I have now overcome my fear of Wiki's and am one step closer to becoming a digital immigrant!