Wikis_Blog 1 post by Melissa Gooch
Well,
I didn't know that the word “wiki” comes from the Hawaiian language and it
means quick or fast. My first initial thoughts on using Wikis in the School
Media Center vary. I wonder if it would be a beneficial tool to use for
collaborative efforts among your school district media centers as wells as for
limited external uses. I recently visited at a local middle school Media Center
and experienced how they utilized a shared calendar for Media Center
reservation time sign ups. This tool seemed very valuable and helpful for that
purpose. Since wikis are like web pages ‘under construction’ this can be seen a
drawback. Users can edit ad-hoc in real-time you would definitely need to be
concerned with privacy and security practices and settings. Looking over the articles, I did find that
using a wiki for collaborative purposes, whether it be for research or class
project, and this type of assignment would be made more efficient if using a
tool such as a wiki for the group members assigned. I could even see how in my
current work environment, how a wiki document would be so helpful. Currently,
we share many user documents, manuals, test plans etc, and we are tasked to update
them accordingly. Well, that is fine, unless someone is in the document you
need, and even though we have ‘tracked changes’ turned on, you can’t access the
document at the same time as another user. In this example, a wiki document would
be the go to accessory to have! We are often updating our user guides (manuals)
and there are more than a dozen of us team members responsible for keeping
those guides updated in our subject matter areas. In a school environment, I
think this tool would be handy for those teaming teachers, for ease of updating
lesson plans or other documents shared collaboratively. I recently (a few
semesters ago) had the opportunity to create wiki documents via google. Students were are all assigned to groups. In
these groups, we created google docs of School Library Media Center handbook
items, such as: inventory procedures, mission statements, video policy, etc. In
this setting, the wiki platform worked very well. We could all edit the document
at the same time, and we didn’t have to save local copies or email the group attachments
when completed with our section updates, it was a great tool for this
assignment!
A drawback,
would be if for any reason another user had access (security) and was able to
complete an ‘accidental’ editing session, you would in this case, want to
ensure you had a back-up stored locally and some good security measures in
place for preventive and accidental measures. I did learn from the readings that you can establish
controls and set your wiki as public or private, so that would ease some of the
security concerns I had initially.
Wiki’s
seem to be another one of those tools that are on the cutting edge of
technology for our 21st century learners. Helping them by providing
the platform for collaborative learning, social networking and engaging and personalized learning environments.This tool assists with different learning styles and shifts the roles
of students to creators of the knowledge from consumers.
Lastly,
I leave you all with a short comical story, I asked my husband (an IT support
staff) and our techie teenager what a wiki was? The response from my husband
was, I don’t know, why? And out teenager gave almost the same typical answer as
well, I don’t know, but strangely he didn't ask why. There is much to learn regarding
all the ever changing technology tools available. Do you all see Wikis as
collaborative tools for educational settings, and school media centers?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think the use of wikis can be used as a collaborative tool in an educational setting, but I think for student use, students must be monitored and guided. Melissa, you made a good point, technology is ever changing and constantly being used in the classrooms and media centers. Being an interactive media teacher, I come across students that just HATE using computers and have no interest in using them. These students are not tech savvy and the use of wikis may not be easy to use for them. I see these kids slipping through the cracks because initial wiki set up takes some time and also tracking contributions (media specialist/teacher) can be difficult when using wikis. This leads to my next point, which is wikis provide access to the entire virtual world. Kids not interested tend to become daydreamers and will stray far from their home wiki page. I’ve gone to you tube to figure out one thing and that video lead me to something totally of topic and I could see that happening with the use of wikis in the classroom and media center.
ReplyDeleteI can see people not know about Wikis also. I asked at our school and three of my classes said it was related t Wikipedia. I told them it could be a great tool to share facts, Mini research projects, collaborative annotated bibliographies, collection of links, online repository, student teacher post, e portfolios and many other ideas given . They are all great ideas that can link to the standards and help a student use higher order thinking activities. I think that it is weak in the editing department but I see all the uses being used and strong to support education in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteAs more and more people learn how to use Wikis then I think it will become a useful tool. It will stop being storage and useful information will evolve from it. I think you should be able to link a standard to the Wikis because it is technology in the making and more and more students need to understand how to use it. The students wanted to start learning now. But in the type of environment I have, I can not at this point teach Wikis till I become a school media specialist. SOON I HOPE!
You present a good question in your last paragraph. I see wikis as a collaborative tool but not necessarily in the education setting or in school media centers. Being a classroom teacher you quickly realize that there is always that one student who has to see what they can get away with when not monitored. This would be my fear with letting students collaborate on a project through a wiki. I have found that sharing a document/project through something like Google docs is much easier to monitor and more efficient when it comes to enabling editing among participants.
ReplyDeleteI feel wikis are a useful 21st century tool and can be incorporated in many areas. However, they may be for a more mature audience that can decipher between accurate and inaccurate information provided by anyone being able to edit the wiki.
Melissa, thanks for the quick definition, now I know the meaning of wiki You bring up a good point about collaboration. In all the other posts, wikis are the subject of classroom and student use, but you mention the potential uses of wikis in for teachers within a school and within a department or school system, this is a great idea to collaborate on a larger scale. Your experiences in the workplace are very similar to mine. On a daily basis my department is editing and creating documents and saving them to the share drive, but when someone has the document open or saves the information on their desktop instead of the share drive this creates problems. True, using a wiki would allow for everyone to make changes simultaneously and have access from one location. We talk so much about ways to integrate technology into the classroom but fail to realize the benefits that same technology could play in our current position outside the classroom. I agree that a drawback of wikis is the security of the content. The readings did offer answers to many of my questions and concerns revolving around security but having the ability to undo or save a backup of previous information would be helpful. My better half is also in IT, after reading your post I asked him what a wiki was, he didn’t know either. Although many may not know the meaning of the word wiki but the abilities of a wiki can be beneficial to anyone.
ReplyDeleteMelissa,
ReplyDeleteBefore starting this program I had no idea what “wiki “was and the purpose of it. By experimenting with it to do class projects, I became aware of its importance as a collaboration tech tool. It is great when you are working on group projects because you have the ability to go in and make changes at your leisure. This is wonderful when everyone in the group is on different time schedules. There are some drawbacks as with all tech tools, but I believe the advantages outweigh the drawbacks. This tool can help teacher and students with all types of educational purposes. I recently used a wiki to do my Roles of the Media Specialist Portfolio. I can now share this information with my potential employer.