Thoughts on Blogging and Wikis
First, I’ll start with the genre that interested me least- the wiki. I read “Making the Case for a Wiki,” and I have to say that it really didn’t persuade me to start using it as a tool in my classroom. I have to say that I did go into reading the article with a bias, my only experience with a wiki being Wikipedia, which I feel is an unreliable source. I hate it when my students use that as a reference (even when I tell them not to), but I know that when they type something into Google or whatever, that Wikipedia entries are one of the first things to pop up. They don’t understand that they could create or edit an entry, or that they could be getting their information from someone who really knows very little about the subject, or has posted incorrect information.
But to get off of my own personal feelings about wikis, and onto the article, I think it actually reinforced my issues with wikis. Reading about the “edit wars” that take place over controversial issues only confirmed to me that there are serious issues with wikis— as far as I know, no one can delete your blog, or change your words. I suppose if the wiki had a page locking system as Tonkin suggests, then it would improve the authenticity of the wiki, and a reader could see the natural flow and progression of an idea as it is shaped. I do think the “mapping” that can take place with a wiki could be useful as well, but overall I don’t think that I will be using wikis in my classroom.
On a more positive note, I do think that blogging could be something I utilize in my teaching. I read both ”When Blogging Goes Bad…” and “New Jersery High School Learns the ABCs of Blogging,” and they both started to get the ball rolling in terms of what I could do with my students next year. I think that Krause’s story was really helpful in that he modeled what not to do, and I was able to pick up some pointers for blogging with my students. I think his biggest mistake was that the assignments and expectations were not clear to the students, and I believe he knows that. That is one thing I learned very early on in teaching— you have to spell it all out for them, or else you’ll be disappointed in the results. He also assumed that because the students were graduate students, they would be more internally motivated to do work voluntarily— well, we all know what happens when you assume. When I do use blogging in my classroom, I now know I need to be very clear about the expectations— what I want posted, how frequently, responding to the postings of other students etc.
So even though his article was about blogging gone awry, it was still very helpful to me. The article about the New Jersey high school was pretty simplistic, a cheerleader of sorts for blogging— since I read it after Krause’s article there wasn’t anything terribly new or informational about it. It was simply an example of an effective way to use blogging in your classroom that echoed what Kajder said in Chapter 8, and is an example to follow. I would have liked to hear more about how the teacher set it up, student opinions, assignments (i.e. what the study guide assignment looked like), how he got the students motivated etc. I think he could have done a lot more with that article.
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There hasn't been much talk of wikis yet, so I want to weigh in on this. I can't shake the feeling that wikis have enormous potential for collaborative work, but I really can't figure out what it is. The only practical application I've thought of so far is making a wiki for vocabulary units and assigning students to post sentences using their vocabulary words. This could be done in another format, but I like the layout of a wiki for it.
Wikis work effectively only if there is effective self-regulation - and how many high school students are capable of that?
A mostly irrelevant story about wikipedia: A few months ago I was glancing at the Wikipedia entry for "To Kill a Mockingbird" and got really excited because it says that Aunt Alexandra's last name is Hickock. Not coincidentally, I assumed, the less sympathetic killer in Capote's "In Cold Blood" has the last name Hickock. Capote and Harper Lee grew up together, the character Dill is based on Capote, and Lee helped Capote do lots of his research (and keep a little sanity) for "In Cold Blood". I was delighted at this amazing connnection. Until I checked the text itself and discovered the last name was actually Hancock. What a buzzkill.
I need to agree about the potential of wikis while still agreeing with you on points you posted. The immense amount of information and the easiness to post information without it needing to be true on the internet is problem that plagues using the internet for research. It makes me think that before even beginning an internet based section in a classroom curriculum that simply educatign students about how to use the internet, what constitutes as legitimate (not sure if that's spelled right) information, and the dangers that arise from plagiarizing, using incorrect information, and posting false information needs to introduce the lesson. In other words before beginning the lesson, one has to teach one completely based on how to use the internet.
Before I begin, let me say I have the least knowledge and experience with wikis. I didn't even know the truth behind wikipedia before this class. I thought it was a legitimate resource--shows how much I know. That being said, everytime one of you talks about wikis and their "potential", you inadvertently make a strong argument against them by listing the downside or less desirable side of wikis, ie: editing, false information, plagiarism,deleting,etc...
Without some sort of regulation guidelines in place, I don't think I would encourage the use of wikis with future students.
I think the blogs that I have seen that work well are the ones with short posts. Brevity seems to be the key to good blogs. As AFK said “This week, I definitely did not engage in dialogue in the way which is most useful to me for my own learning. For example, after reading the Knobel and Lanshear piece, my reaction was "alright, there are some interesting points... (long pause)...I don't think I can say anything”.
I can relate to this very much as I experienced the same feelings of frustration with the blogs and some of the readings. I was curious but not engaged. Not engaged enough to post anything of substance beyond my initial entry which was in reference to Kajder’s omission of blogs and wiki’s. Between her not mentioning the wikis and blogs and Krause giving blogs a failing mark I was turned off before I started. The bottom line is that at this point in time I don’t feel that blogs are the most conducive to discussions in high school classes. I’m not saying they don’t have potential but as Bill Parcels used to say about potential and I’m paraphrasing “Potential means nothing until you actually achieve something”
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