I scoured the web for some practical uses for the Wiki as a classroom tool. Here are a few of my favorites.
Exam Review You can use the discussion forum to facilitate a dialogue with students about future assessments.
Student Portfolios Each student can create a Wiki site and post samples of their work.
Peer Review Students can post their work and others can comment on it.
Glossary or Vocabulary List The class can develop a glossary for a specific assignment, or for the year.
Calendar Have students add items to the class calendar that are interesting to them, but relevant to the course work.
Classroom Scrapbook
Notes Collaboration Share notes on group projects.
Lesson Summaries Have students summarize a lesson using the Wiki.
Exploratory Projects Assign a research project and ask students to use the Wiki to report what they find by writing about it, posting files, links, etc.
I started using Second Life for a class assignment and wanted to share some of my thoughts and observations. I am using it to explore how other educational institutions and organizations are using it. It’s fascinating. I explored 3 worlds: ISTE Island, Tisch Library and Write Center for Climate Change, and Seminole County Public Schools. Here are some of my thoughts and observations.
·There is a learning curve. Second life takes some time to understand how to navigate different worlds, interact with various features, move your avatar, and use the Second Life browser. It’s worth taking the time to visit Orientation Island that takes you through the basics of walking, jumping, teleporting, and interacting with the many second life features.
·Navigating Second life is an amazing experience. You are able to ‘teleport’ between worlds and the range of experiences seems never ending. I was able to visit places I never imaged, and get a fairly good introduction to them. You can chat with other users and from different parts of the country, or world. I visited Greece, for example and was able to explore the Acropolis and learn a little bit of history.
·I was impressed by all of the interactive features these worlds have. Some of the features are basic, like hyperlinks. Others are rich like videos and multimedia. The most impressive one I saw was a photo booth in the ITSE world. Participants could take pictures, in advance of a conference, for their ID badges.
·There are many practical uses for Second Life, especially in education. If you search Second Life for “Education” you will see many learning opportunities. This is an excellent tool to engage students, parents, or the public. The world you create is accessible by anyone and I saw many areas for public school districts, individual schools, or even universities. The material ranged from specific course information to general information about the organization.
·Second Life is complex and large. There is a vast network or people and places. You will need time to explore and find quality content.
·In the short time I used the Second Life Viewer, the web browser, which is what you use to access Second Life, was glitchy. It uses a lot of computer resources, and some worlds were only partially accessible because of ‘server glitches’.
Overall, Second Life presents, in some ways, the future of interaction on the web. I see the potential for gaming, learning, teaching, social networking, etc. I think Second Life has a learning Barrier, and I’m not sure how expensive or difficult it is to develop within the environment. The potential is grand and I’m interested to see how far it goes.
I’m taking a class in Educational Technology. I think I mentioned this in previous posts. This week, we’re reading about visual learning tools. These are typically web-based tools that allow you to present information visually. I was asked to upload a presentation to one of these websites. I choose Slide Share. I uploaded a “How To” guide for connecting an iPad to a Wireless network. I uploaded a word document and in less than a minute, it was online and viewable by Slide Share’s community, which is over 50 million. It’s one of the 250 most visited websites on the web, and one of the top 10 in the educational market. The file was converted into a read-only word document and to my surprise the formatting remained intact. This is great, but I wasn’t convinced of the power of this site. Then I started reading about Slide Share, and I realized the power of this tool. I’m able to upload presentations, make them public, and share them with anyone. I can also search other presentations and use their work to create or improve presentations for my projects. This is great because it gives me access to a group of people that can comment on my work, share it, or use it elsewhere. It might even mean someone will like what I have to say and hire me to speak or consult. I was so excited; I decided to post a second presentation I developed about preventing cheating in an online course. I can’t wait to see what feedback I get.
As a technology consultant and a full-time educational technology evangelist, I’m often asked how to use social media as an educator. Recently, a friend and college professor wanted to know why she should use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to stay connected with her students. I initially responded by noting it’s how teachers and students communicate, but as I researched the use of these tools by college instructors I started to realize I might be misguided. Here is an interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that reviews a national survey by persons of 1,000 faculty members about their use of social media. It’s clear from this research that social media is being used as an information source and not for social interaction.
I think there is more resistance to social media in higher education because students are mostly self-motivated. In K-12 these tools are great for engagement and collaboration (locally, nationally, and internationally) and there seem to be more opportunities for the use of social media for learning.
