Re: [school-discuss] Re: [IIEP] Social software, FLOSS & organisational transformatio n

[Bill Barowy <wbarowy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday 30 September 2005 1:53 pm, michael dean wrote:

> computers.  The new e-learning "gurus", ever suspicious of the past,
> ignore strong research which indicates for all age cohorts, computers
> just ain't got it.

Gee, things have changed a lot since Plato was run on a mainframe with 
Hazeltine terminals in the 70's, ya think?  Besides the technology are more 
social and cultural theories of learning, new pedagogies, new practices,  
etc.. But I suppose luddites haven't changed.   

Below are the discussion board posts from my M. Ed.  candidates, who had just 
expeerienced a day of using my wiki (twiki to be exact) running on Linux, 
apache and perl.  The hardware is homebuilt around AMD 1.5 Ghz with a cost of 
under $300.

My students are teachers with an average tenure I will guestimate to be about 
10-15 years teaching.


Let's see how wicked I was. Here's what I did with my class in a computer lab:

I edited  a main wiki page with the full class looking on the projector and 
brainstormed  topics to research with them.   Quite curiously, the topics just 
happen to be about using computers in education.  I then assigned groups of 
2, 3, and 4 to the  wiki topics and  further developed subtopics within each 
group, assigning  students to researching and  creating  one to two topics 
themselves and editing those of others.  

Here's what they wrote in response to my discussion board question.

Question: After creating content in the course wiki and reading articles on 
wikis in education, what do you think about using wikis for school?



Wikis are wonderful, I can see very practical use of this in the classroom.   
I can split students into teams and have each member to actively participate 
in the development of a webpage on content material relevant to the 
curriculum.  The nature of wiki itself  encourages teamwork in order to 
complete the project.  The program is simple and easy to use and will teach 
my students practical skills that can be used in the real world.




I liked Wiki, it allowed us to work as a team at our own pace. This would be 
good to use at school because instead of everyone working on one computer 
looking up information each child could research a topic within the topic of 
research and then all of it would be put into one site. It was easy for my 
group today to be able to work at our own computers at our own speed and then 
just save our work and it was on with the rest of the groups work.


Wikis are great! Wikis would work well with my students for three reasons.
1) Wikis allows the students to work in groups and still be responsible for 
each individual input. As an instructor I would be able to track student 
individual input.
2) Wikis is very similar to HTML; many of the editing function are HTML codes. 
Since I am teaching HTML, Wikis is a great reinforcement in my class.
3) Wikis is another way to create WebPages.





There appear to be so much to learn about Wikis. . . I did come away knowing 
that the Wiki Web pages allow a great deal of flexibility.  The authors 
working on the site can edit each others work and pretty much insure that no 
one is damaging the site.  This would be a great tool for school age 
children.  I particularly like the fact that the site can be a continuous 
work in progress.  Students working on the page, can go in and brainstorm in 
an effort to truly improve upon work that has already been included.  Further 
I like the fact that there is a yardstick to determine if each editor is 
capable of making a viable contribution. 



I feel that Wiki would serve as a wonderful introduction to creating webpages.  
I teach third grade students, and I believe that HTML may be too tedious for 
them to utilize.  However, I do believe that they could use Wiki.  It is not 
as difficult as HTML.  After working with a program like Wiki, students may 
find HTML easier.




I think using wiki is great. I find it really easy to use, because I had some 
html and dreamweaver background.
I prefer wiki, because several people can work on the same page and it keep 
tab of people who make changes. It is a great tool for teachers, because 
students can use it for colloborative assignments. I would probably use with 
my GED students. Also, I think wiki is different than dreamweaver and html in 
the sense that we can't change colors for font and tables.



I believe that Wikis in schools would be a great example of emerging 
technology. I believe that if educators are train well it is definitely a way 
for students to work in groups collaboratively. It will also give educators a 
chance to enhance student's skills in reading and writing.



I enjoyed learning about TWikis. There are familiar codes that were used 
before in  html. The step-by-step procedures makes it really simple to 
complete a task. Great tool!



Creating a wiki seems much easier than HTML, and I think that will be 
especially true for high school students. I'm anxious to have my students try 
to make one.

I'll let you know how it comes out.



I think Wikis are an excellent way for students to collaborate on a project 
with their peers. It allows them to edit each others pages rather than the 
teacher. It seems to be an easy way for students to learn some html coding 
and see the results immediately. 



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