Wednesday, 13 April 2011

Wikis in my teaching context

SWOT analysis of Wikis in my Teaching Context



Strengths
Weaknesses

·         Connections – sharing of ideas, experiences, information and opinions
·         Open to suggestions from experts, students and parents
·         Interpersonal and communication skills – promote teamwork and compromise
·         Creativity
·         Engagement
·         Writing
·         Meta-cognition
·         Multiple authors, collaborative
·         Expert jigsaw, where set little tasks then can add to wiki for holistic completion of work
·         Problem solving and decision making
·         Authentic work and fresh new ideas emerge due to constant revision and reflection, one idea leads for more in depth questions or different paths
·         Pages which allow for certain subjects and/or unit topics
·         Allow shy students to become involved
·         People can change your work and re-edit it – could be in a malicious way.
·         Trust has to be established in order for this Web 2.0 digital tool to be a success but this can be a positive view as well, to develop trust in the cyber-world.
·         Content untrue which can disadvantage other learners
Opportunities
Threats

·         Self-assessing
·         A universal space which anyone can edit and give their opinion, which sparks debate and critical thinking.
·         Students have the opportunity to own their work and ideas – which encourages students to take pride in their work and develop confidence within themselves to tackle a range of cognitive junctures.
·         Include parents in the wiki page so they can view what their students are learning and even have their own parent wiki page to discuss school related issues.

·         Copyright legislation – make sure fair dealing and fair use is practiced. Creative Commons is used and attribute content and ideas.
·         Privacy threats, we have to teach students to be safe and ethical while browsing and roaming within this online space
·         Policy on posting students names


·         Security for children identity and ideas/ use passwords and usernames
·         Be vigilant to any disruptive behaviour online


Wikis are a valuable online space described as being continuously “under revision.” It is a living collaboration whose purpose is the sharing of the creative process and product by many” (Teacher’s first: the source for learning, 2010, para. 2).

Wikis have the potential in my teaching context to engage students and create an interactive learning environment which challenges a range of useful life-skills, cognitive ability, human interaction and attitudes towards learning. I have designed my own wiki page to demonstrate pedagogical ideas that can be used within a wiki for the key learning area: English.

In my wiki page, Shakespeare’s essay outlines, I have designed a concept where students can record important and significant themes, characters, scenes, quotes and a glossary to help develop and outline their essays. This will enhance the student’s capacity to collaborate on new ideas, use effective interpersonal communication skills, constantly revise and give them the opportunity to expert jigsaw comparisons and contrasts.

Wikis enable the ability to link prior knowledge to continual new knowledge that is revised and transformed. Due to this process students tend to use the high order thinking end of the scale in relation to Blooms cognitive ladder (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) because they are constantly bettering the information and ideas through collaboration and connectivism. Wikis support eLearning frameworks such as the Blooms taxonomy and learning engagement theories by using scaffolding techniques like de Bono’s thinking hats (De Bono, 1992). View here for an example of wikis scaffolding the use of digital video in the classroom. As demonstrated wikis can transform a students learning environment, they can problem solve, self-assess their work, spark debate and discussion on ideas and present authentic content which is constantly revised and lead to in depth analysis.

However, there are some issues on “how do the users of this wiki ensure the promise of freedom within it”, but more accurately “who will be empowered to judge the relative freedom of those who decide to participate” (Assume good faith limitation, 2011, para. 19). Because wikis can be edited by anyone, boundaries and consequences need to be established in order for trust to prevail and wikis to evolve. 

Teachers can manage the wiki spaces by selecting for private use and only inviting students and parents to the page. This also helps when you want to be covered by the ‘Fair Use’ clause; a private account must be created for just you and your students.

But the concept that sets wikis apart from other Web 2.0 tools is that “the openness may trump individual opinion with group consensus” (Teacher’s first: the source for learning, 2010, para.4), students become tolerant of others ideas and instead of ignoring or slandering ideas, a wiki brings about healthy debate which promotes digital fluency and inclusive behaviour within the process of learning. Wikis remind students and teachers that the creative process is never closed; it is an open-ended resource and engagement in activities is high, because you can work as an individual, in peers or as groups.

References

Anderson, L., & Krathwohl, D. (2001). Bloom’s introduction: Bloom's Revised


Assume good faith limitation. (2011). Retrieved 5 April 2011 from:



De Bono, E. (1992). Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats. Retrieved from



Teacher’s first: the source for learning. (2010). Wiki walk through. Retrieved 5 April


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