As I was reading and reviewing other blogs about wikis I kept feeling insecure about the safety issue of using it with students, especially high scchool students. Many of them do not know how to use the internet appropriately and post ugly or mean things for everyone to see. However, I recently read about Wiki's private label where schools and business can pay yearly to have their own wiki communinty seperate from wiki spaces. It can be managed and rules of membership and conduct can be established. Another benefit is that since the teacher or administrator would be in full control, there is full control over the content that is posted and your firewall will be able to safely allow your site through.
The major down side to this was the yearly fee. In the state of education right now, there will not be any extra money for safe wiki sites.
I guess, as a teacher, I would find it very cumbersome to constantly be monitoring yet another classroom ( a virtual one). Behavior is a big deal and I still feel in more control within my four walls and am very weary of having to manage behavior outside those walls in the virtual world. I am still looking for teachers on the high school level who have had successful use of the wiki as a learning tool, especially with regular, college level kids...not honors or AP students, who typically do the "right" thing. I have no issues with these students and using the internet, but when it comes to the average high school student, I still feel it is going to become a behavior issue.
On another note, using wikis professionally and for media center web sites seems like a positive way to model appropriate interaction. I beleive the adult posting would set the standards for any comment made by a student, and it is a different environmant than that of a classroom.
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Behavior is definitely a concern of mine when it comes to high school students as well as elementary and middle school students posting information on public sites on the internet. There is a danger for students to abusing wikis by using them negatively. However, there are probably more students that would use the sites productively than those who would not. Having a good behavior management system could also prevent a lot of misuse if students understand the consequences for misuse. It’s not really fair to take the opportunity to expand their knowledge of technology modes of relaying and sharing information from them because you’re afraid of what other students “might” do. The fee based software seems like it would be the safest alternative for your situation. If the cost is fairly reasonable, you may be able to get it as a media specialist if you can show how valuable it would be for teachers and students to have access to it. Many principals are willing to include more technology in the curriculum if they know it will be used regularly. Just something to think about.
ReplyDeleteRaina, "Private label" wikis are definitely an alternative to "wiki farming" or other open-source wikis found on the World Wide Web. I agree with you that with the state of this economy, the likelihood of getting a school to spend money on these is not too great. I see fee-based wikis as more of an option for businesses. I also know from some research I did over the summer that there are some wikis you can host on your own server. I am hoping to further research the option of linking a wiki or blog to a school's server. If these are functioning under the school's domain it will not cost a fee. It may require permission or a higher up to place it there, however. The best part is that they would be separated from the rest of the Internet. Dr. Putney told me that we could have the best of both worlds this way, and feedback I recently received on a graded assignment from Dr. Cooper mentions this as an option as well. All I need is additional hours in a day to find out how this works because by the time I become a media specialist, I would like to demonstrate rather than tell the value of Web 2.0 tools in a safe environment. The alternative for now is to ask our district technology specialist to unblock individual pages one at a time.
ReplyDeleteAs for using wikis as technology tools, I think they would be useful for collaboration on group projects. Here is a video that explain how they can be implemented, although the example is on camping. Substitute your own topic.
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=20514&title=Wikis_In_Plain_English
I think this would be especially motivating in high school. I have noticed also that if the guidelines are clear and students are given the opportunity to collaborate, they usually won't deliberately sabotage or mess with the content of projects when their grades are on the line. Unfortunately, I taught high school English (not honors, regular) before there was a such thing as Web 2.0 or wikis, but when we did technology projects, they actually seemed to pay better attention and behave better. In addition, I know students really get into using their handheld devices, blogging, social networking, and making videos for YouTube, even some students who are not necessarily good students. So I would like to reach out to them and play into the things they enjoy doing and turn them into educational experiences, perhaps. Also, like you mentioned, participating in wikis, etc., can model appropriate interaction. Students can be taught netiquette and educated about the dangers of giving too much information in an online setting. These are teaching them skills they can apply outside of the classroom as well.