"I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power.

... You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs." - Jesse Owens


Wikis! "At last we visit a 2.0 tool that I know about," said she so innocently. However, as you read on, you will see that this week I have gained even further insights into wikis and the ways they may be used in education or for social purposes. Wikis have many possiblities - you can go in any direction with them - and as fast or as slow as you want! There is always some new sight to discover.

Several weeks back I decided to create a wiki about Maus as a visual presentation for my graphic novel course. Since we hadn’t explored wikis yet, I readthe chapter on wikis in Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms and decided upon his recommendation of Wikispaces for educators. After watching The Commoncraft Show’s Wikis in Plain English, exploring examples of wikis, completing the Wikispaces tutorials and doing a little planning on paper, I was ready to build my wiki.

Although I was very nervous to start, I found the wiki surprisingly easy to create and I was soon able to use a logo, embed videos, add clipart, establish links, change fonts, and play with background colours. I soon felt quite comfortable with Wikispaces and its features and loved the freedom to have some artistic input into its design. This is not to say that I didn’t run into snags along the way. One problem that took me hours to try and fix was the correct order of the pages on my menu bar. Although I couldn’t find any assistance from the help section or accompanying help questions, I’ve since learned that one can rename page titles using A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 as a preface to achieve the desired order. I was very pleased with the end results and decided that a wiki is great way to share information with other group members, especially when video, audio or images are part of the format.

I hope you will find time to visit Maus for a quick snoop at my efforts. You may notice that the comments pages on my Maus wiki weren’t accessed as my classmates had to respond on the Web CT site instead, so this wiki didn’t develop into a true Read/Write experience with everyone collaborating. I am presently creating a second wiki using PBWiki with two classmates as a presentation for our curriculum class on the Teacher as a Change Agent will use a more collaborative approach both in its design and function. One gal set up the wiki, and after some initial hassle getting started (my account password kept going to my School Board’s spam folder), we were up and running. The three of us have been able to add content, edit and create our presentation long distance, an interesting alternative to emailing or calling back and forth. Each edit is saved and reported in an email to group members (a strikeout format is used) so other members can easily see what has been changed, a feature I love! I have found that PBWiki is also very user-friendly and our only concern is that we are having some glitches with spacing between notes being saved properly. When the presentation is complete, we will give full access to the wiki so that comments may be collected and the collaborative dimension of wikis may be utilized. I am also creating another wiki for my graphics novels course on Watchmen, partly so I can revisit wiki creation and strengthen my skills.

Just to further expound on the Read/Write potential of wikis, it is interesting that Richardson encourages teachers to teach Wikipedia to students and quotes Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) as calling “Wikipedia one of the world’s most accurate encyclopedias”. This is certainly the opposite of what I had been taught in Internet workshops. Last year I also remember reading a newspaper article where the founder of Wikipedia, Ward Cunningham, questioned authority as he mentioned that he found errors in his own Wikipedia biography. I have always cautioned my high school students against relying solely on Wikipedia and encouraged them to verify its comments with additional sources. Since Richardson raves about this online encyclopedia, I have felt more confident using it for research answers. I am finding it to be a quick useful reference and consults with other sources have proven its information accurate (so far). I have definitely changed my “snobbish” attitude towards Wikipedia, and am now using it on a daily basis.

In this week’s Trailfire I explored every listing, wanting to learn as much as I could about the potentials of wikis. I love the useful bank of Web 2.0 tools which Tracy Poelzer has created at Wonderful Web 2.0. I decided to explore one of her links to WetPaint, a wiki program which looks quite easy to use. I liked the little tutorial created my Lee Lefever ( I recognize his voice now) which illustrates how a wiki can also be used as a social application to bring together people with similar interests as a “a potluck dinner on the web”. Wikis are great ways to create albums, plan events, and celebrate key family moments with relatives near and far.

Joyce Valenza’sTeacherlibrarian wiki is wikis within wikis and a very comprehensive resource. I followed the links to the Teach Library which was an example of how a wiki may be used as a way of collecting and storing resources (such as lesson plans) which could be added to by others. This illustrated how a well-constructed wiki can make a teacher librarian’s life so much easier by use a completed lesson or adapting it to fit needs. It occurred to me that I could even post my Maus wiki here. After I make a few changes, I think I'll do this.

Web Tools4U2Use (which I visited last week during an exploration of virtual schools) also posted an impressive list of wiki sites to explore. As we explore each Web 2.0 tool, I find their corresponding lists of uses especially useful. Reading through the wiki uses, I found a few ideas which I could easily see myself using such as creating a library media website, publishing slideshows, organizing subject-based resources, providing a forum for book reviews, promoting new books, creating pathfinders, creating temporary class collaborative projects or using a wiki as a launch for library slideshows, presentations and links used with information literacy instruction.

In A Wiki Gives a Worthy Book New Life Amy Bowllan wonders why people don’t use wikis to share lessons online. Although I agree with her concept of using a wiki to collect lesson plans, I was not impressed by her example. The wiki she had created to accompany a novel study came across like a worksheet, just in a different format with pictures and some vocabulary links. When I explored the site I couldn’t see any collaboration by students, a big component that helps a wiki achieve its fullest potential.

It’s hard to remember what was on the Trailfire and what wasn’t because I happily meandered off the path a number of times. One little serendipitous jewel I found was
Spice it up a notch with Nutmeg! a book award program from Connecticut. Our District Teacher librarian is trying to talk me into setting up a site like this for our Langley Book of the Year elementary school book promotion program (LBOY). We’ve been considering using a blog format but I rather prefer the idea where students may be added to the wiki (through email confirmation) and can work on the LBOY wiki site as a collaborative project adding opinions, ideas, pictures - anything related to the books. If I created it as a blog, the project would be more teacher-centered and getting the students involved in a wiki would give them greater ownership in the project as well as help them to develop their facility with Web 2.0 tools and learn wiki etiquette. I forwarded our District Teacher librarian a copy of the wiki and we may work to create one together - with me teaching her how!

The Cool Cat Teacher Blog (Flat classroom project) is a very impressive site. Vicki Davis’ good organizational suggestion of putting assignments in same place every time on an organizational wiki – like parking the car in a garage - make sense. In her article How I Use Wikis, Vicki says she places all her classroom work into wikis. I especially liked how she has the students create collaborative notes and I can see that this would be especially useful for students who needed extra support or have forgotten work at school and can access this schoolwork from home. Although I feel fairly confident about creating wikis and now have ideas on their uses, the logistics of getting teachers and students involved was a concern to me. Tom Harrison (Part 1) asked this very question and Vicki nicely answered him. Her practical advice is to start small and simple with one class and then to use your ID to set up for students en masse (visiting Wikispaces tells you how to do this). In Part 2 of this conversation Vicki talks about setting up a wiki with students and letting the students have “wiki wars” with straight text no pictures where they learn to remove and insert for practice. I could just see this happening! Vicki really knows all about her subject because this would allow the students to explore random deleting firsthand and clearly illustrate the need for wiki etiquette where you don’t remove things deliberately.

In Part 3 Tom talks to Vicki about how he feels so far behind the curve and overwhelmed by the technology and pace of change. This is very much the way I have been feeling throughout the course, for even when I master one new Web 2.0 skill, there are so many different aspects to its applications or different versions to explore which offer additional features. Vicki, a true technology mentor, reassures him (and me) that “the teachers who are stretching and evolving, changing and improving are the WINNERS!” “We're blazing the trails that other teachers will follow later on.” I can certainly see myself blazing trails in the library with wikis!