EDES 501 Blog Post #5: Wikis

Reflections on the Process of Learning About the Tool

January 2009, my home, my pajamas, my computer. The time, the place, and the circumstances surrounding the decision to further my professional education. The course, EDES 542 Inquiry Based Learning, the Instructor, Lorine Sweeney. This is where it all began folks, for me anyways. I begin this post mentioning this course as this is what prompted me to create the Honeybee Wiki with my daughter's grade 3 class. I believe at the beginning of EDES 542 I also felt quite overwhelmed with being a "student" again and finding the time to really engage myself in and do a good job with the course content and assignments. Getting past those feelings of guilt when my children ask me things like, "Mom are you going to be on the computer all day again today?" are the same feelings I am also experiencing this time around. Even though I have completely given myself as a mom and a wife for the last ten years, I continue to struggle with this and similar questions and comments. My husband supports my decision to pursue my graduate studies and reminds me that it is okay to do something for myself for a change. So here I am revisiting an assignment completed a few months ago and reflecting on my learning then and the new knowledge I have gained to date.

So What? The basis of all good inquiry questions. The Focus on Inquiry (Alberta Learning 2004) document is an excellent resource on how to implement Inquiry methods into your teaching and motivate students to find the, "So What?" I learned that the nature of inquiry is such that the question or topic students are researching, is finding an answer, solution, or further question that people actually CARE about or WANT to know about. Sounds pretty easy, right? A lot of 'research' projects in schools still remain to be very traditional in the sense that they look for information on a topic, record that information in some form (essay, poster, etc.) and then share it, sometimes. Rarely do most educators take that extra step and ask ourselves, how is this information important or relevant to the 'big picture'. Is this something that is going to help us answer a question or look at an issue that is meaningful to the real world. So this is how we (myself & my daughter's class) began our research unit on honeybees, by asking ourselves if there was anything we could find out about regarding honeybees that people are going to care about. Considering the age group it was important to begin with building upon and adding to their background knowledge on the subject. Inquiry learning certainly doesn't imply that this step is not an important one. The major project for the Inquiry course was to implement an Instructional Inquiry unit with our students. I decided to showcase our learning, research, and inquiry questions through the creation of a class wiki. We did not have to choose a wiki as a way to implement this inquiry unit, but I believed it would be a wonderful to way for them to learning about inquiry through the use of technology.

The entire process was amazing, not without its glitches and frustrating moments, but amazing. One important aspect of using the inquiry process with students was to ensure specific times were allocated for "inquiry" time. The kids knew it was "inquiry" time whenever they saw me walk in the door and they were very excited, each and every time. I am still amazed at how completely engaged they were each time we worked together because it was something new to them and they got to work on the computers. I chose to use Wikispaces http://wikispaces.com/ to create our wiki as I had visited a few fellow classmate wiki's, that back then I thought were just awesome. Not that they weren't, but it was new technology to me that I had never encountered. Once I learned that it only took a few minutes to join and create my own wiki, I knew this would be a user-friendly, fairly easy way to share our information and new knowledge. And it was. Taking into account the grade level and time constraints, I initially chose to set up the wiki with regards to the layout and adding pages for each student group. Unfortunately the Linux software on the computers at the school isn't great for this kind of project, plus the fact the kids are denied access to most everything online made for some interesting, rip your hair out kind of sessions. Once the students had sorted through, decided on relevant information and recorded it, they began editing their own pages. Exploring aspects of their text like style of font, size, colour, etc., background colours, and adding images as well. A couple of groups found managing the text on their page quite easy and so I worked with them to add some links to places online where they had found some of their information. Throughout this entire experience I was astonished again and again at the level of engagement and excitement portrayed by the students even in moments of digital-agitation. Their cognitive processes were challenged during the research process, sifting through the mass amounts of information available online regarding honeybees. Then having to choose the pertinent information to record on their wiki to share with a global audience. These thought processes were fed constantly by their affective feelings of excitement and ambitious ideas. Proving once again that if students are not engaged, no authentic learning will be taking place.

Where am I now in regards to my learning about this tool, wiki's? I am quite confident in my ability to create one with students using any of the wiki creation sites such as Wikispaces, Wetpaint, or PB Works. I went back to the Honeybee Wiki to see if there was some way that I could use this space to demonstrate new knowledge of this tool, as is a requirement for these blog assignments. I decided to personalize my profile page as creator of the wiki, as I realized that I had not added anything about myself to the page. I had also not even added a picture of myself or other image to the page, and what remained was the grey, square-face image as a wikispace default. Following last week's discussion regarding customizing and personalizing our spaces on the web, I figured this might be a good way to update the wiki with my new knowledge. My profile page can be found here: http://www.wikispaces.com/user/view/naisy.

Discussion of the Tool in Terms of My Own Personal Learning

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." (Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder) This quote is at the beginning of Will Richardson's chapter on wikis. I read it a few times before I really began to think about what it meant. I have to admit that when I first learned a couple of years ago that anyone can edit pages on Wikipedia, I had my doubts regarding the reliability of the site. How do we possibly let students refer to information when they have no idea who actually wrote it? Since that time I have learned through various assignments and my own personal research for information that Wikipedia is in fact, quite reliable. Richardson refers to a professor at the University of Buffalo that posted thirteen different falsehoods on a variety of pages on Wikipedia and found that they were all fixed within a couple of hours, "Thankfully there are vastly more editors that want to make it right than those who want to make it wrong." (p. 56) In fact on page 59 of Richardson's book he notes that Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, "has called Wikipedia one of the most accurate encyclopedias in the world."

I was very fortunate to attend a Professional Development day on Friday in Kamloops at Thompson Rivers University, Tech It Up! International 2009. The session was presented by School District 73 and TRU and featured some very impressive key-note speakers including Doug Johnson and Dr. Michael Carr-Gregg a high profile psychologist from Australia speaking on cybersafety and cyberbullying. Doug Johnson, with whom we are all familiar with through his Blue Skunk Blog, addressed the audience with his take on educating today's students with regards to technology. This generation, "Generation Y", he stated, are, "Differently moralled not immoral." He repeated this throughout his presentation along with the idea that it will be easier to change WHAT we are teaching versus changing the STUDENTS we are teaching. These Generation Y kids have always been around or immersed in technology, and whether we like it or not, students have and will continue to use sources like Wikipedia or other information wiki's out there to do their research. One of Johnson's slides that came up on the screen cited a study done that found 98% of the information found on Wikipedia was completely accurate. There were a lot of "holy cow's" and "you're kidding" in the room following that slide, as many of the teachers attending felt fairly uncomfortable when it came to integrating technology into the classroom. Johnson also talked about students being "engaged" versus "entertained." Students may be entertained while watching a video or typing a report on global warming, but they are not necessarily engaged. I believe that creating a classroom wiki or simply editing a page on Wikipedia about global warming is definitely going to engage a greater percentage of students. I wish I could talk about everything he said, but I should try to stay focused (if you click on Blue Skunk above it will take you to a post made by Johnson where he mentions the conference and some information around teacher-bullying.)

If I think of Wikipedia and the issue of copyright the social implications do seem to be somewhat of a challenge. Richardson suggests that wiki's, "follow closely the opensource software ideal that the quality of the collaborative produced product is more important than owning the idea or the code." (P. 59) Once students reach higher levels of education, though, formal citations and references are not only expected they are required. Therefore if students, myself included, find all this amazing, seemingly reliable information on Wikipedia or other valuable wiki's online, are they considered "quality resources" by professors? I would think they would have their place, provided recognized, academic sources were also cited.

A wiki created by former U of A Grad student, Tracy Poelzer, was provided to us via one of Joanne's trailfires, Wonderful Web 2.0 Tools. Tracy was also one of the session speakers at the Tech It Up conference I mentioned previously. I attended her session on "Voice-Thread" in which she used this wiki to present the information. I kinda had one of those epiphany moments where I thought, hey, here she is using a 'wiki' to share all these amazing tools with a group of professionals. She focused mostly on Voice-Thread and it's benefits with students (and family) and at the end we all brainstormed to try and think of different ways to incorporate this tool in the classroom. She was able to add others ideas, right there during the session. It was fairly engaging to say the least. It got me thinking of ways I could also use a wiki, professionally and personally. My husband's parents are trying to arrange a Christmas holiday for next year, here in Kamloops at SunPeaks Resort. Creating a wiki to plan and share information with the entire family would be a really easy way to keep track of everything, as we all live in different parts of B.C. Professionally, some of the staff at the elementary school in Chase are always asking me for ideas or sites they could use with their students. Again a wiki would be a great way to collaborate with staff to share ideas and resources. Ultimately, I think I have learned just how much wiki's do have to offer in terms of collaboration, engagement, reliable information and accessibility.

Discussion of the Tool in Terms of Professional Learning

As a teacher I do believe that creating a classroom wiki in whatever subject area or in whatever capacity will engage most students, perhaps even those reluctant to learn. Wiki's, "are often appealing and fun for students to use, while at the same time ideal for encouraging participation, collaboration, and interaction." This quote is from an article I found on Smart Teaching.Org that lists 50 ways to Use a Wiki for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom. There are some good examples listed that include: resource creation such as a class encyclopedia; student participation ideas like a portfolio or peer editing; classroom or group projects; and, community centered items such as creating a school tour or a page on local history. There is a plethora of information online regarding wiki's, their creation, their uses and their reliability. But, there are still a number of educators reluctant to explore these resources as a reputable information source. Last year when I asked my daughter's teacher if I could come in as a parent volunteer to create a wiki with them on their honeybee unit, she was interested, but cautious at the same time. I believe she said something like, "But can't anyone go on and add things or change the information? What if somebody puts something really inappropriate on there?" I explained that all of the sites we visited would be screened before hand to ensure their accuracy and appropriateness and that I could also restrict access to the wiki to only her class and myself. To validate her point though, I did create a spoof wiki with totally inaccurate information and images that had nothing to do with honeybees. I had built quite a bit of background information with the class on the honeybee and its role in the environment and prayed that when we went on the spoof wiki that someone would recognize the falsities. I almost jumped for joy when the first student said, "Mrs. Gartrell, this isn't true, bees don't have only two body parts!" Another student noticed their was a picture of a wasp instead of a honeybee and another screamed out, "Hey, they're saying pollination isn't a big deal. They're wrong!" So although these kids were only eight and nine years old, most of them realized that what they were reading was not factual. As educators we need to teach these critical analyzing skills that will enable our students to decide what information is authentic so that they can still explore and refer to these valuable wiki information sites.

An article written by Morgan & Smith (2008) in the Reading Teacher, A Wiki for Classroom Writing, discusses the different kinds of wikis that could be used in an elementary classroom.
According to the article, wikis are ultimately created to be authored by more than one person to improve collaboration between students and the teacher. "Classroom wikis, report wikis, school wiki sites, and interschool projects are just a few of the different types of wikis suitable for this population," which in this article is referring to elementary-age students. It is easy to envision a classroom wiki that is a space for students to create and showcase unlimited forms of authentic learning. From research topics, to multimedia projects where they can imbed images, video, podcasts and chat boxes to demonstrate and share their knowledge with not only the teacher, but family and the global community as well. Not to mention that students don't have to be at school to access their wiki. They can access it anywhere they can get online which would only increase student participation and engagement. In Morgan & Smith's experience, "The students noted the ease of composition, the deemphasis of error, the helpfulness of the collaboration, and the efficiency with which they were able to complete the assignments."

Another article I found in the "Teacher Librarian" focused on wikis and literacy by K. McPherson, was Wikis and Literacy Development (2006). It discussed the value of using public wikis as well as, "the students' ability to evaluate the authenticity and credibility of the wiki's information." I think this will be an important determinant in regards to persuading classroom teachers to explore the use of wiki's to supplement their classroom regime. If educators take the time to teach their students the skills they need to assess the information found on the wiki, I do believe there is an amazing amount of reliable information available for students at their fingertips. Providing they can all access the Internet, either at school or at home. As McPherson concludes his article, "Public wikis are valuable information sources that teacher-librarians can use to complement and further the width and breadth of literacy objectives developed in the classroom."