Comments on: Makin' Wiki http://www.ovenell-carter.com/2009/01/08/makin-wiki/ Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:39:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Joe Fezzuoglio http://www.ovenell-carter.com/2009/01/08/makin-wiki/comment-page-1/#comment-57 Joe Fezzuoglio Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:12:13 +0000 http://ovenell-carter.com/blog/?p=231#comment-57 Hey Brad, Thanks for the information on wiki’s. I am relatively new to the web 2.0 educational technologies. However, I was selected by my high school district to participate in the PLP Project with Will Richardson & Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. I have been following Bill with VoiceThread and have done a couple VT with my health classes. I would like to take the next step in creating a class project within a wiki using VT. Ultimately, my goal is to work outside our school district with other health classes on a project. My administration will be looking closely at my class projects to approve more web technologies for my classes and through our school district. I was hoping to get some ideas from you about starting a wiki (which one) project for my health classes (4). I would like to create something in the topic area of STD’s, dating violence, or teen pregnancy. I am concerned about security, monitoring, and evaluating my students within the project. I hope with a little push I will be able to create a project that my students look forward to contributing in and learn from within my class and outside my class room. I hope this makes sense… Thanks Joe Hey Brad,
Thanks for the information on wiki’s. I am relatively new to the web 2.0 educational technologies. However, I was selected by my high school district to participate in the PLP Project with Will Richardson & Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. I have been following Bill with VoiceThread and have done a couple VT with my health classes. I would like to take the next step in creating a class project within a wiki using VT. Ultimately, my goal is to work outside our school district with other health classes on a project. My administration will be looking closely at my class projects to approve more web technologies for my classes and through our school district. I was hoping to get some ideas from you about starting a wiki (which one) project for my health classes (4). I would like to create something in the topic area of STD’s, dating violence, or teen pregnancy. I am concerned about security, monitoring, and evaluating my students within the project. I hope with a little push I will be able to create a project that my students look forward to contributing in and learn from within my class and outside my class room.
I hope this makes sense…

Thanks
Joe

]]> By: Brad Ovenell-Carter http://www.ovenell-carter.com/2009/01/08/makin-wiki/comment-page-1/#comment-54 Brad Ovenell-Carter Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:43:05 +0000 http://ovenell-carter.com/blog/?p=231#comment-54 I think student participation in creating the wiki rubrics is critical. It changes the role of the teacher from that of (knowledge) giver to guide. Moreover, it makes learning dynamic and redresses the typical imbalance that favours product over process. It also moves kids toward some high level thinking--synthesis, analysis and evaluation--of both the data (the wiki and the content of the wiki) and the metadata (the rubric itself). Thanks for the comments, Peter. I think student participation in creating the wiki rubrics is critical. It changes the role of the teacher from that of (knowledge) giver to guide. Moreover, it makes learning dynamic and redresses the typical imbalance that favours product over process. It also moves kids toward some high level thinking–synthesis, analysis and evaluation–of both the data (the wiki and the content of the wiki) and the metadata (the rubric itself).

Thanks for the comments, Peter.

]]> By: Peter Rawsthorne http://www.ovenell-carter.com/2009/01/08/makin-wiki/comment-page-1/#comment-56 Peter Rawsthorne Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:35:16 +0000 http://ovenell-carter.com/blog/?p=231#comment-56 Great post! Many relevant observations and ideas. I like the idea of rubrics to encourage participation. The idea being is the students (with guidance) create the rubric themselves about what it good OER wiki, what they consider good participation and how all this would be evaluated via the rubric. Once their is collaboration in creating the rubric it sets the tone. And the rubric is often referred to as the wiki project progresses. Its kind of like a contract that they were a part of writing. Great post! Many relevant observations and ideas. I like the idea of rubrics to encourage participation. The idea being is the students (with guidance) create the rubric themselves about what it good OER wiki, what they consider good participation and how all this would be evaluated via the rubric. Once their is collaboration in creating the rubric it sets the tone. And the rubric is often referred to as the wiki project progresses. Its kind of like a contract that they were a part of writing.

]]> By: Brad Ovenell-Carter http://www.ovenell-carter.com/2009/01/08/makin-wiki/comment-page-1/#comment-55 Brad Ovenell-Carter Sun, 11 Jan 2009 07:19:31 +0000 http://ovenell-carter.com/blog/?p=231#comment-55 Thanks for the compliment, Bill. You've raised a point we (at IPS) have spent a great deal of time going over and over and over, namely assessment and reporting. Currently, the bulk of student work is given formative assessment; so no marks, not even on our 1st term reports, but lots of anecdotal feedback (Google Apps is great here). A good idea I think, as formative work is where the learning happens. A summative assessment is something like taking someone's pulse or temperature. It gives you important data, but it doesn't tell you or the student what to do. So far this has worked well, although we have had to run several information workshops to bring the parents up to speed and it took the better part of the term to get the students to loose their acquired taste for letter grades. Generally, this has been received well by everyone: students, parent, teachers. To be honest, it never occurred to me to make a summative assessment of a wiki page as a better or worse wiki page. I see a wiki as a means to an end, say a deeper understanding of a novel built on some collaborative note-taking and discussion in a wiki. And I don't see how we can fairly make summative assessments of means. Perhaps naively, I think that with practice (and some coaching, to be sure) good wiki will develop organically. In fact, most of what my students and I know about wikis comes from our first asking the question, How can we use the tools we have to come to a better understanding of whatever problem is at hand? and then going off and tinkering. This approach has been highly successful in our WikiEducator project and in a study of Frankenstein. Again, you're right on the money, Bill: in my experience taking away grades does make the students more interested in learning and less interested in scoring. Brad Thanks for the compliment, Bill.

You’ve raised a point we (at IPS) have spent a great deal of time going over and over and over, namely assessment and reporting.

Currently, the bulk of student work is given formative assessment; so no marks, not even on our 1st term reports, but lots of anecdotal feedback (Google Apps is great here). A good idea I think, as formative work is where the learning happens. A summative assessment is something like taking someone’s pulse or temperature. It gives you important data, but it doesn’t tell you or the student what to do.

So far this has worked well, although we have had to run several information workshops to bring the parents up to speed and it took the better part of the term to get the students to loose their acquired taste for letter grades. Generally, this has been received well by everyone: students, parent, teachers.

To be honest, it never occurred to me to make a summative assessment of a wiki page as a better or worse wiki page. I see a wiki as a means to an end, say a deeper understanding of a novel built on some collaborative note-taking and discussion in a wiki. And I don’t see how we can fairly make summative assessments of means.

Perhaps naively, I think that with practice (and some coaching, to be sure) good wiki will develop organically. In fact, most of what my students and I know about wikis comes from our first asking the question, How can we use the tools we have to come to a better understanding of whatever problem is at hand? and then going off and tinkering. This approach has been highly successful in our WikiEducator project and in a study of Frankenstein.

Again, you’re right on the money, Bill: in my experience taking away grades does make the students more interested in learning and less interested in scoring.

Brad

]]> By: Bill Ferriter http://www.ovenell-carter.com/2009/01/08/makin-wiki/comment-page-1/#comment-53 Bill Ferriter Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:06:15 +0000 http://ovenell-carter.com/blog/?p=231#comment-53 Hey Brad, This is a brilliant piece. I particularly like the comparisons that you made between a good wiki and a musical ensemble as well as your "Wiki Attitudes for Student Projects." In my work with kids and wikis, those are the kinds of mental skills and behaviors that they struggle with, that's for sure. As far as using roles with wikis go, the only time that roles are used in wiki work with my kids is if I'm attaching a grade to the project. Like any group work assignment, kids left to their own devices when working on a shared task end up with a skewed workload---and that creates all kinds of drama when it comes to scoring! I guess the solution is to get rid of grades completely, huh?! That would fix the problem AND make our students more interested in learning and less interested in scoring. Good stuff, Pal. Bill Hey Brad,

This is a brilliant piece. I particularly like the comparisons that you made between a good wiki and a musical ensemble as well as your “Wiki Attitudes for Student Projects.” In my work with kids and wikis, those are the kinds of mental skills and behaviors that they struggle with, that’s for sure.

As far as using roles with wikis go, the only time that roles are used in wiki work with my kids is if I’m attaching a grade to the project. Like any group work assignment, kids left to their own devices when working on a shared task end up with a skewed workload—and that creates all kinds of drama when it comes to scoring!

I guess the solution is to get rid of grades completely, huh?! That would fix the problem AND make our students more interested in learning and less interested in scoring.

Good stuff, Pal.
Bill

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