MY THOUGHTS ON WIKI'S

In the middle of September, I invited my friend and web mentor Tom Hemingway to our school to present a short workshop on wiki's and a project management software called Basecamp. While more than twenty teachers expressed interest in these Web 2.0 technologies, only about a dozen or so actually attended the workshop, because the others were teaching at the time. [I have promised to invite Tom back for another workshop later so that the others can benefit from it as well.] Thanks to Tom, I have begun experimenting with Wiki's as a means of presenting material for my course on the web, with the expectation that my students would collaborate in preparing and adding their own material.

This is not my first such attempt. I have for the past few years attempted to make up for the little sliver of time I have for TOK in our IB program by encouraging students to participate in discussions in a Yahoo Group for TOK for students at our school. Although I have told my colleagues about what I'm trying to do and left them to decide whether they would ask their students to participate, I seem to be the only teacher who actually tries this. With students I found that the pattern for each of the past three years has been initial activity, followed by waning interest, tapering off into complete silence in the second year. Last year, I had one of the seniors create a forum for our TOK discussions, but here too, the enthusiasm was limited, even though at one point I thought my students had finally begun to enjoy discussions on-line. This was one of my motvations for trying out a wiki, since it gave me an opportunity of training my students in using it, and explaining what I would like them to do. So far, I have not been very "directive"or insistent, but perhaps I should be, because the degree of participation has yet again been quite disappointing.

I have opened three wiki's, one on Wikispaces as a discussion space for colleagues about issues in school, and two on Peanut Butter Wikis for my business and management course and for my pre-IB course that I designed as a Grade 10 elective. (More on that later.) I found that it's about as easy (or difficult) to use wiki's as it is to surf the web and to exploit the various functionalities in an e-mail program like Outlook. (I'm not a master of Outlook, but I can share my calendars with others in school, and specify rules for dealing with messages from particular senders, beyond just receiving and sending e-mails.) Personally, had I known better, I would have preferred Wikispaces to PBWiki, because of more features and easier linking.

Dialogicity and Busman are my student wiki sites, for those who wish to view them.

There are several criticisms I wish to make of the wiki's. As you can tell by looking at them and reading the material, they are not designed to appeal to the visually oriented and verbally challenged adolescent. Nor do they make any attempt to "grab" the student reader and stimulate participation, especially if the student is one with not the best command of English. [English in our school is barely used by students outside the classroom, and even within it only for communicating with the teacher. The students who do best at English are using it actively outside school for more than just their homework.] Thirdly, especially in the case of Dialogicity, I have been told by a colleague teaching English in high school that the language used is too academic and challenging for most students in the class, although there has been some attempt at contributing comments and discussion. These are criticisms of these wiki's that I fully agree with. I need to work at improving the wiki's.

What were some of the assumptions I made in creating these wiki's that I may now need to revise?

Firstly, I assumed that the students would have a degree of self-motivation and curiosity that would energize them to try out a new technology of learning, and collaborate with their fellows into participating more actively on the wiki. I think I also assumed that the novelty of the technology, and my own enthusiasm about it, would motivate the students.

Secondly, I assumed that the language of the wiki's in my material would be within the reach of the reader, because I made a conscious attempt to simplify the language where I found myself becoming to academic in style and vocabulary. But clearly I need to work much harder at this.

Thirdly, I assumed that lines of text, with the occasional diagram, would be enough to hook the reader. After all, this is what I find in most other educational websites.

Lastly, when I was designing the big questions in the five major areas in Dialogicity, I tried to pose them in an interesting way, but I don't think most of my students are attracted to those questions. So it's my challenge as a teacher to help them see their value. Despite the initial enthusiasm among a handful, I can't assess as yet whether the wiki is helping the class as a whole to do that.

So when I hear Vicki Davis in the US enthusing about the almost 100% participation rate of her students in the wikis she have set up for them, I feel a mixture of admiration, envy and frustration. I took a look at one page in her wiki to get a clue to what makes it work. It was clear that her students were probably much more keen about using Web 2.0 than even the average US high schooler. This suggests that her school must in an affluent district where the parents and the administration also have a supportive attitude to the use of such technologies.Seeking any kind of official support from my administration would take up too much time and energy in meetings and discussions, so I shall probably do this thing on my own, and perhaps later run a workshop about it if I have anything to crow about, and if I'm given the time.

The other concurrent possibility was suggested to me by Tom - that Web 2.0 only works when there is already a culture of collaboration and communication towards common purposes. As he writes in his blog: "...if people don't know how to work well together in the same room, then the best wikis, intranets and telecom systems in the world won't help. " From what he told us at the workshop, Tom's own experience in his school (also with Turkish students, but from perhaps a slightly different social background than most of our students) has also been quite positive. Having visited his school during the last IB Day, I could sense why. There was a warm feeling of commitment and enthusiasm about learning. Perhaps it was just the atmospherics of the occasion, but having been there on other occasions, I somehow doubt it. I find this less commonly in my school, which is so obsessed by exams and tests and university entrance that the enjoyment of learning often quickly dissipates. Or perhaps I don't move in the right circles.

Before school re-opens next week, or perhaps right on Monday itself, I wish to make a pitch for the use of wiki's and blogs to my students, and also to the rest of the IB class of 2008. I would also urge on my colleagues the suggestion of Vicki Davis in her podcast which have been summarised by Steve Hargadon, i.e., use wiki's as an educational tool for the dollowing purposes:

* Lessons summaries
* Collaboration of notes
* Concept introduction and exploratory projects
* Dissemination of important classroom learning beyond the classroom
* Individual assessment projects

I will probably make some kind of Web 2.0 feature a part of my assessment in TOK and Business.

Here, via Vicki Davis's blog, is a series of articles written by a nineteen year old student, giving a student's perspectives on Web 2.0. There is a formidable list of applications discussed here, but here is his caveat:

All in all, I do not feel school systems or businesses should immediately jump on the Web 2.0 train, but I think it’s time they start considering it as an option and try some of the solutions it has to offer. Try some of the applications for a week or two and find if they work for you. If your a teacher, see if your class prefers writing in the friendly and social Writely, or the intimidating and feature packed Microsoft Word. Some teachers are already doing it...

Comments

[Vicki Davis]

Wikis are just part of what we do in our classroom. The most exciting use is as an exploratory to introduce a new subject. Perhaps that is how you should start. I actually have a 100% participation rate, and no, although we are a small private school, we are very middle class. I do teach small classes with 20 being my largest.

I also do a segment on Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies and how it is in their future.

I also did a presentation at the k12 online conference that you may want to view. (www.k12onlineconference.org) it is also at the K12wiki we finished which was amazing -- you can to go k12wiki.wikispaces.com.

If you need some help, feel free to contact me via my blog - cool cat teacher.

[Tom]

Hi Gautam,
Congratulations on braving the wilds of web 2.0 with your students!
You've got plenty to think about here on several different levels, so I'll split my response up between this, a follow up on my blog, and a personal email. First of all, I wonder what the students themselves say are the reasons for the level of participation you observed?
I pretty much agree with the points that you shared from Vicki Davis on the uses of wikis, but some of those uses are more of a one-to-many nature (for example, if the wiki is an extension of your classroom lecture), while others are more many-to-many (a group rant). Another mode that students might perceive is many-to-one, where you are garnering several individual responses to your trigger question, but everyone is writing to you alone.
If students feel like the wiki is mostly an extension of your lecture, they might be reluctant to "mess it up" with their own comments. I've got some ideas on how to work around that. More later. Meanwhile, take heart from my driving lesson metaphor.