Students today
are collaborators. They would much rather work together and engage in
conversation than sit and listen to a lecture (Johnson, 2011). Students today
are also surrounded by information from the time they wake up in the morning
until they go to bed at night. Sitting passively in a classroom learning about
information is a contradiction to the rest of their life. Students actively
interact with information through the Internet, chatting on social media
networks about their likes and dislikes, and connecting with others who have
the same interests in music, movies, TV shows, etc. Furthermore, today’s
students are growing up in a world where problems are solved through online
communities around the world rather than through individual problem solving.
This world is not going to change; it will likely become only more
collaborative. Therefore, as teachers we need to teach students to work
collaboratively, so they will be prepared to work in highly collaborative
environments of the future (Johnson, 2011).
Understanding
today’s students means recognizing that they would rather work together than
alone. One e-tool that facilitates this collaboration is Wikis. Wikis are
collaboration tools that can be used in blended and online classrooms. With
Wikis, students and teams can work together at any location, inside or outside
of the classroom. By definition, Wikis are web pages that anyone who has
permission can edit or change. They are a platform where users can actively
participate with content. Using Wikis in the classroom is a transformative
learning experience as students are in control of their learning (Prensky,
2010). Wikis are built into many LMS sites; however, other popular Wiki
programs are PBworks (www.pbworks.com) and Wikispaces (www.wikispaces.com).
I use Wikis in
my online classroom for group work. Groups work together on projects. I assign
them tasks that they work together on online. The great thing about Wikis is
that they are available to students whenever they have access to the internet.
To set up class Wikis, I create group pages with instructions for each group on
their Wiki page. I also put grading comments on the group Wiki in addition to
the gradebook.
Wikis are
powerful e-tools that give all students a voice. Part of my instructions to
each group is not to delete anything from their Wiki. They can go back and
cross out ideas when they are revising, but they should not delete other
students’ comments. By crossing out items, they can go back later and recover
information if needed. By not deleting comments, it also gives the students the
message that all of their ideas are validated. Additionally, when students
write their ideas, add to others ideas, or cross something out on the group
Wiki, they put their name by their comment in parenthesis. This way it is easy
to track who has contributed to the group project.
Wikis also encourage
participatory and democratic learning. For the first group assignment, teams
have to decide on the leadership structure of their Wiki, including who is the
leader and what roles each team member will play. Other factors they hammer out
are deciding when and how they will meet, deadlines for contributing material
to their Wiki, when they will post their assignment, and how they will solve
disagreements among group members. Finally, groups come up with a team name.
Since my classes are Sociology, they choose a Sociologist’s name for their
group names. In subsequent assignments, I always include “Teamwork Questions”
where the students have to assess how they worked together as a group. These
questions ask teams to reflect on their planning to get the project done on
time, the structure of how they worked together, who did not participate in the
assignment, and how the team has improved in working together since the first
project. Students who do not participate in the group Wiki project receive a
zero.
One example of a
group project I give to students includes assigning readings and videos for
students to analyze together. I post the pdf and video links on their group
Wiki page along with the questions to answer. I ask groups to answer each
question individually on the Wiki, and then on the final version, they will
compile all of the best answers. Sample questions I ask about the reading and
videos include main ideas, purpose, key concepts, inferences and conclusions,
key questions addressed, answers to the key questions, how the article/video
supports its conclusions (facts and data) and synthesizing information from
both readings and videos. Lastly, there is a reflection section where each
student has to connect the article/video to their personal experience and then
as a group summarize the patterns of the member’s responses. Using Wikis for
group projects allows students to demonstrate their knowledge in a
collaborative way instead of traditional individualistic forms of assessment.
Using
Wikis as a collaborative tool in the classroom supports a personalized and
relevant learning environment. Wikis help students make sense of the
information-rich world in which they live. 21st-century students are very adept
at finding information on the web; however, they do not always know what to do
with the information that they find. As teachers, we need to guide students in
learning how to evaluate, analyze, and organize the wealth of information that
they have access to. Nearly all students have access to Google and are
constantly surrounded by information, but dissecting and connecting information
into meaningful learning is a goal of 21st-century learning (Tapscott, 2009).
Johnson, S.
(2011). Digital tools for teaching: 30
e-tools for collaborating, creating, and
publishing across the curriculum. Gainesville, FL: Maupin House Publishing,
Inc.
Prensky, M.
(2010). Teaching digital natives:
Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin.
Tapscott, D.
(2009). Grown up digital: How the net
generation is changing the world. New
York,
NY: McGraw-Hill.
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