Wikis and Learning

To encourage collaboration and see the impact on student learning, I created and used wikis with students this year. My “letsshare” wiki was used by three different book clubs. The Diary of Anne Frank and Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry was used by fifth grade groups; On My Honor was used with a fourth grade group. The wikis were structured to promote high level thinking and included pages with guiding questions, reflections, comparisons, predictions, character analysis, and links to outside resources.

The “ancientgreecemuseum” wiki was used by a sixth grade class to share information about the Cultural Universals of Ancient Greece: artistic expression, authority and government, basic needs, daily life, geography and climate, power, recreation and leisure, technology, and trade and economy. There was a page for each Cultural Universal where students shared their research and reflected on how the Ancient Greeks used human ingenuity to change their society. They also used the space to brainstorm ideas for a museum they were designing as a culminating project. It was fascinating to see how the trade and economy group used font colors to distinguish important concepts in their research; a key identified pink text as items that the Greeks traded; blue text was where they traded; and black text was money or other.

The wikis supported collaborative learning, yet the page history provided a level of individual accountability. Students were told that their pages could be viewed by anyone and letters were sent to parents inviting them to view the content. I believe that this “world audience” was highly motivational for students and gave them a sense of responsibility for the information, and final wiki pages contained high quality content.

My experience this year has shown that wikis provide a venue for organizing and presenting information in collaboration with others and are highly motivational for students.

If you would like to view the wikis, visit http://letsshare.wikispaces.com/ or http://ancientgreecemuseum.wikispaces.com/.

Just Dig In

How many of us read the user manual before digging into a new software program? I confess that I do not. I usually work through the program, and then go to the user manual to clarify and extend my knowledge.

Recently I used Audacity with students for the first time, and of course did not read the reference material ahead of time. Third grade students wrote news stories that they recorded; sixth grade students wrote and illustrated stories in HyperStudio and used Audacity to record parts of the stories.

Recording was intuitive for the students, but they ran into a few snags when they came back to listen to their recordings. When students opened their file, many inadvertently went to the project folder and panicked when they discovered bits and pieces of their recording rather than the entire piece. I quickly realized that when you save an Audacity project, the program automatically saves the Audacity project file with the .aup extension AND a project data folder which contains small segments of the recording. Users should look for the .aup, Audacity project file, which contains the Audacity icon when editing a recording.

Yes, this information is in the user manual, but I would still be perusing the guide and not using the tool if I had not been willing to dig in and try it.

Aha Film Festival

The video production class Joe Fatheree and Craig Lindvahl developed and co-teach in Effingham, IL is more than curriculum, it is a culture in which high school students feel comfortable to express themselves creatively and openly through film making. I had the opportunity to attend the fifth annual Aha Film Festival highlighting the top 29 films the evening of March 31. My favorites included a documentary on “Plow Day;” a deeply moving film on the life of a man after killing a young child in a drunk driving accident; a young teen dealing with her mother’s diagnosis of cancer; and a stirring interview with a student who shares her obsessive compulsive disorder of pulling her hair out.

The day of the event Mr. Fatheree, Mr. Lindvahl, their students, and guest speakers shared ideas in a variety of workshops. I attended a workshop by Apple and another with Mr. Fatheree in which he shared the growth of his program from a few outdated PC’s to where it is today. Joe Fatheree is passionate about the program, would like to see other schools embrace it in their curriculum, and is willing to help in any way he can.

Read about the festival and films here: http://www.effingham.k12.il.us/aha/.

Collaboration

Our sixth grade is participating in the “Square of Life” collaboration project sponsored by CIESE (http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/squareproj/index.htm) this spring. Students will work in groups of three to identify living and non-living things they find in their “square” and share their findings with member schools. The project addresses many curricular standards, is not time consuming, and connects students to others around the world. I am anxious to see the impact world-wide collaboration has on learning.

Under Our Nose

Recently I attended a reading conference with two great workshops on the use of technology in education; one on blogging and the other on the use of online resources. Both presenters provided a piece of paper with a list of links to web resources they referred to in their presentations. I found it interesting that they did not refer to a social bookmarking site for their resources. Sometimes Web 2.0 tools are right under our nose and we do not realize it. So… I came home, reviewed the sites, and added those of interest to my del.icio.us favorites. Delve in and see if any interest you.

Lost and Found Fashion Show

This week our daily broadcasts included lost-and-found fashion shows. Each day two students wore attire that had been left in the lost-and-found. To encourage students to claim their items, they provided detailed descriptions, and turned so that the audience could see the front and back. Denim jackets, scarves, hats, and lunch boxes were among the items highlighted in the fashion show. And, yes, it worked.

Sharing Photo Stories

A group of second grade students created amazing stories using Microsoft Photo Story 3. Story elements included text, digital photographs, movement, and music that fit their story line. As I pondered how to print the stories so that students had a “tangible” piece of paper to show their work I came to the realization that they did not need to be printed. In fact the students never asked for a printed copy; I was the one who desired that final published piece of work to put on the bulletin board and send home to parents. Are other teachers coming to "ah ha" moments like this as teaching changes with the digital age?