Using Wikis with the Youngest Elementary Students

From what I have read, wikis seemed to have found their place in today’s modern classroom.  I can see so many advantages for older student using them, though I understand the disadvantages that have been discussed.  While I see them being used often in the upper grades, it seems to be more difficult to implement at the lower levels.  Students in elementary school, especially the youngest ones, have the least amount of experience with computers and the internet.  Often, most of their exposure has been playing games under the supervision of parents or teachers. 

But I stumbled upon Patrick Ledesma’s blog post about using wikis to help students strengthen their vocabulary skills in content-specific classes.  While the article does not name the specific age level Patrick is writing about, usually students have content-specific classes starting in upper middle school.  But this technique can still apply to elementary school classes. 

A major focus of elementary curriculum is developing language and vocabulary skills.  Students can do exactly what Patrick describes:

1. Restate the definition.
2. Create a non-linguistic representation.
3. Cite examples and non-examples.
4. Edit or add to other entries.
5. Use the pages in regular activities, or for studying.

This is a great way for students to have instant access to exactly what they have been learning about in school.  It can combine the traditional vocabulary study (lists of 10-20 “new” words focused on weekly) with the content-specific words (Math and Science terms, story elements, historical events and people, etc). 

Once students have an understanding of how the wiki functions, they can begin to expand beyond just vocabulary.  Rather than doing the traditional book report, students can create a wiki page or series of pages about books they’ve read.  And then if another student reads the same book, he/she can add to what the previous student wrote about it.  When students study a new Math concept, they can create wiki pages to help their classmates who are having difficulty understanding the concept.

Another help to elementary students is that they can see previous class’ wikis.  Personally, I would create a new wiki for each class year, but I would be sure to save the previous ones.  This would enable previous students to continue adding to or editing their work as well as having it available for them to show new teachers, friends, and relatives what they’ve accomplished together at a young age.  Perhaps this year my class is going to study the life cycle of ladybugs instead of butterflies.  They can still have access to last year’s class’ wiki pages on butterfly life cycles anyway.  This would add to their knowledge of life cycles in general while expanding beyond what we are focusing on in class. 

This also has another benefit to students.  By continuing to allow students access to their work and the work of previous students, new students will see value in the work they are adding to the wikis.  I believe that this would teach students several valuable lessons:

1. The work they do in my class is valuable.  It is so valuable to me that I save it to show my following classes.
2. What they put out on the internet is permanent!  It is out there for good, whether it displays good work or not so good work.  My hope is that this would help mold their ideas about the internet in general, especially when it comes to social media.  They might not participate in social media sites in the younger grades (though my 2nd grade cousin has a Facebook page so you never know), but it would be an idea that stays with them to that age and beyond.
3. It's ok to make mistakes.  If you make a mistake on your wiki entries, someone else will come along and edit it for you.  My one wish is that there was a way to let those students see the corrected mistakes so they know what they did wrong (spelling/grammar error, wrong formatting, etc.) and learn from it.

Before reading Patrick’s post, I was definitely skeptical about using wikis with young children.  I wasn’t sure exactly how they would best be implemented with these kids.  Would they do just a single project on it?  Would it be me entering information for them?  How much time would we devote to developing a wiki?  All these questions ran through my mind while thinking about it.  But I honestly think this is the best way to use them with young students.  It’s an ongoing project that would need to be taught and reinforced at the beginning of the school year, but students would eventually be capable of doing it on their own.  It allows students to use computers without needing direct instruction or supervision from the teacher.  It allows them to work together, though not necessarily at the same time, on creating a final product.  It gives them the opportunity to take ownership of a big project without assistance from teachers (at least after they really learn to use it) or parents.  After teaching preschool for two years, I was amazed that one of my 3-year-olds knew how to get on his parents’ laptop, open an internet browser, and go straight to YouTube to watch pre-searched Thomas the Train videos.  At 3!  His parents actually assumed I taught him this, but our classroom didn’t have internet access.  Don’t underestimate what your students are capable of doing!  I always have high expectations of my students (even when they’re 3), but even then sometimes they will surprise you with how fast they learn.

You can find Patrick's article here.  I definitely recommend you go read it!

Expanding the Assembly

I recently read a post by Kathy Schrock on her blog Kaffeeklatsch about President Obama's back to school speech and her middle school.  "Today the entire middle school went to the auditorium to watch the live, streamed back-to-school speech given by President Obama. An interesting phenomenon occurred."  The speech was projected onto a large screen that made everyone feel as if they were in the Philadelphia school the President was standing before.  The students interacted as if they were there.  Kathy was impressed at both the students and the set-up of creating this feeling.

I thought this post was interesting for many reasons.  Firstly, in my own school experiences from elementary through high school, only once did we watch a live broadcast of anything (the morning of 9/11, and against our teacher's wishes one period).  But this was not as a whole school, all together.  It was out of an immediate need to know what was happening less than 100 miles from our school while teachers tried to continue teaching, out of ignorance of the events or in attempt to stay on schedule.

My school years saw many elections and world events and though we had televisions in the schools, no other major events were ever viewed live.  Comparing my experiences to what Kathy's students had that days shows the amazing leaps technology and its incorporation into our schools has made in such a short time.  Growing up, we were told it was important to learn about history, but none of us really could ever explain why.  The students in Kathy's schools that day were living and experiencing history in the making.  They were making a connection between their own lives and the rest of our nation.  They were being exposed to the current concerns of the education world they are growing up in.  They were a part of history.

I think Kathy's school did an excellent job of showing students that world/national events affect them and that they are molding our country's future while writing it's history.  Students can see the connection between the White House and their own school.  The projection of the live-streamed speech made it real to students.  It wasn't a poorly acted re-enactment or a voiced over video like so many are used to in the classroom.

They also saw technology integrated into their personal lives as well as their education.  Students today have such a great wealth of knowledge on technology, but far too often it is not involved into their school careers.  They have the latest video games, cell phones, and electronic gadgets, but rarely get to use computers of any sort in schools. This often makes me feel saddened that these tools of everyone's future are not being used by our students, but then examples like this one from Kathy prove that there are schools out there making that effort, even if not every student has a laptop for school or even computers in their classrooms.



Kathy's original post can be found at:  Interesting Virtual Experience








                            

Week 02- Educational Blogging

Essential Question:  Why could blogging change, or not change, the traditional classroom?

I think in general, blogging is a great way to make connections with people you may normally never have met.  Through my personal blog, I have made friends with people who share my hobby (knitting) in Manhattan, Chicago, Minnesota, and San Diego.  And those are only the ones I have become closest to- there are many many more.

My roommate uses blogging to write about her baking and interview local musicians since she is heavily involved in those two fields.  Through her blog she was able to secure a writing position on a well known music blog, as well as also make some new friends.

I could tell so many similar stories of how reading and writing blogs can bring us closer to people we don't know in our everyday lives.  This is the aspect of blogging that teachers wish to connect with- bridging communication between student and other students, teachers, administrators, parents, the community, and the world at large.

I think one important aspect that can greatly help students is that when other people (i.e., not their teacher) read and comment on their blogs, they can feel a sense of value in their work.  When a teacher reads a piece of their writing, throws a grade on the top, and hands it back to the student, the student only sees the teacher's value of their work.  By allowing the global community to have access to and ability to comment on their work, students can see varying opinions of what they think.  Isn't this more like the real world anyway?  When a book is released, it is reviewed by many people- professionals and the general public.  Why then should we limit who can review student work and give it value to a single teacher (maybe two in the case of SpEd inclusion classes)?  A teacher may not understand the reasoning behind why a student writes something, but maybe another student or reader can relate to what he/she has written.

I think blogging could also help students connect their school life with their home life.  I'm sure everyone remembers some version of this story:

Student and Parent sit down to dinner with the rest of the family.  Parent asks, "How was school today?"  Student responds, "Fine."  Parent asks, "What did you learn today?"  Student says, "Nothing important." 

Or how about this one:

Student puts a frozen meal into the microwave.  Student sits at the table and eats dinner.  Parent is in the office finishing up some work from the day, eating leftovers alone.

Parents and their children often do not have the greatest communication for a variety of reasons.  But say this student had a blog for school.  The class uses the blog for reflections, posting of assignments, posing questions for the readers, etc.  This blog is out there for anyone to read, including the parent.  So long as the fact that the student's blog exists is communicated to the parent (from the school, teacher, student), the parent will be able to see firsthand what the student is doing in school and can comment along with the rest of the world.  I think this is an important consideration that Educational Blogging failed to mention or make note of.

Of course, the article did point out that teachers assigning students writing prompts or requiring them to use the blog is not "true blogging."  I say, so what?  No, not everyone wants to put their life or opinions out there for the whole world to read about.  Blogging just isn't for everyone.  So maybe some of the students won't continue to use their blogs after the school year.  They most likely won't have access to them after graduation anyway since it seems the schools that are utilizing blogging are using software specific to the school.  The school is not going to maintain a student's space on their servers after they graduate, nor are they going to risk the lawsuit liabilities for a former student who is also likely to be a legal adult.

In the district I currently sub in (elementary schools), Blogger is completely blocked.  There is no access to any site that runs off blogger.  By integrating the use of blogs in the classroom, will the schools stop blocking other blogging sites?  Teaching our students that the purpose of blogging is so that they can freely express themselves is a bit hypocritical when the school won't let these students view other blogs.  I think this is a big consideration for any teacher who is debating using a blog with his/her students.  Because of this, a teacher can't even create a class blog on his/her own.  No one would be able to access it while they are at school, making it difficult for children to make any use of it.

Blogging would completely alter how we think of classrooms.  Students would be able to post their assignments on their blogs, where the teacher and all their classmates would be able to read and comment on it.  This could promote outside discussions that could also carry over into the classroom.  Also, it would provide the students who don't normally volunteer to speak during class the opportunity to provide their commentary on classroom topics.

It would provide students with a place for reflection on what they are learning in school.  I agree with the article that the teacher shouldn't always give a required post, but providing a choice of prompts for students when they are feeling uninspired could be helpful.  There are so many topics for students:  reflect on what you've learned; was there anything you didn't understand from today's lesson?; what is something you learned today?; what did you think of the lesson?; what would you like to know more about?; share something you've found online related to the lesson; plus a myriad questions that would be related to the actual topic.

Because I'm only family with the functionality of Blogger, I'm going to comment on some of their features here.  Using Blogger for the classroom I think would be amazing.  Many accounts can be linked to one blog (say, the classroom blog) and everyone can contribute their own posts.  It would wind up being just like a continually updated classroom newspaper available to everyone online.  Also, Blogger has added the "Pages" feature, where you can have multiple pages to separate the information being shared.  Important and relevant links can be shared in a sidebar widget- the school and district websites, state standards, interesting websites, child-friendly sites, etc.  Blogs (or at least Blogger that I know of) give anyone the opportunity to basically have their own website usually free and so easy!  I think they are a great resource for any classroom, as long as the districts start loosening their patrolling of what web-content is available in the schools.