WIKIPedia

WIKIPedia is the world’s most extensive WIKI and online encyclopaedia, providing teachers and learners alike with access to information and images on every topic imaginable. Today I searched of WIKIpedia for resources to use in the science unit I am teaching during my EPL on ‘Inside the Earth’ and came across a vast amount of information on every topic my learners (and myself) could refer to during this unit – from volcanoes, to rocks, to the layers of the earth, to tectonic plates, continental drift and more. Many of the students in the class are aware of WIKIpedia (as I have seen some of them searching the site whilst using the classroom computers).

During one of this week’s science lessons, I will demonstrate how to use WIKIpedia to search for content on the unit of study. As students raise questions about what they are learning, I will invite them to come up to the IWB and type in a term (they are interested in finding more about) in the WIKIPedia search function and to then share what they find with the class. In this way, the site can be used as way for students to aquire information, actively participate in their own learning and develop their digital literacy skills.

Later this term, students will be working in small groups (‘Relate’) to develop (‘Create’) and present to their peers and parents (‘Donate’) a project on an aspect of ‘Inside the Earth’ (be it the different types of rocks or continental drift for example). The project will be completed both in class and outside of the classroom (likely in their home, the library or a friend’s house). WIKIPedia can be used by the students to research the topic regardless of location and I will make this benefit of the site explicit to students whilst explaining the task.

Flickr

Flickr is the portal of choice for storing images and accessing images made available from individuals located around the world.

Earlier this month, I added some recent images to my existing Flickr account, one of which is included below.

P1310100
Originally uploaded by KazaEK

I also added the below images from Flickr to my blog. There are countless photos available on the site and the search tool makes it easy to find what you are looking for.

fireworks on the willamette river - _MG_8698
Originally uploaded by sean dreilinger

In the past, I've used Flickr as;

A. a repository for my personal photos and

B. a means to search for images of interest.

However, as a pre-service teacher, I now see this site in a different light. In considering how Flickr can be used in classrooms and how the site fits in with the pedagogical frameworks discussed in ICTs for learning design, I've discovered a range of new teaching and learning applications which will now be discussed.

Thus far, my postings have focused on publishing text-based content to the web, but online photo galleries and image repositories such as Flickr present opportunities for teachers and learners to publish images to the web.

Flickr allow teachers and learners alike to create photo albums and multimedia shows to share with their parents, friends, teachers, the community and others around the globe. My EPL class at Yeppoon State School for example takes digital photos throughout the year during class activities and school events. Flickr would be a great space for the class to upload their images in one place - allowing the students and other audiences to access the images and see what has been happening in the class regardless of their location.

Flickr is a great way to document and share teaching and learning experiences - field trips, school camps, practical activities, fetes, functions, guest speakers and more could all become part of a class or school ‘photo stream.’ Furthermore, classes and learners can create separate albums for related pictures. Teachers could even encourage learners to create an online portfolio with digital images of their work. For example, a visual art class or students studying a photography unit could create an online gallery of their work on Flickr. Thus, the site is ideal for facilitating learning through images and catering to the visual learners in your class.

Flickr also affords its users a global audience, other people are able to located images by the tags you add, view descriptions added to your images and comment on those images. Thus, an online dialogue with other Flickr users can be created and learners can become involved in a community that contributes images on particular topic, creating a sense of belonging among students as recommended Kunc (1992).

You can also create an RSS feed in Flickr and be alerted when photos related to a topic you are studying are uploaded onto the site. Flickr is also a fantastic resource for learners to source images for school projects and for teachers to find images to include in lesson materials – as most photos are publicly available and can be used by anyone (provided of course, that you reference the image to Flickr). Hence, Flickr is ideal for introducing your learners to the world of digital images/ online image publishing and encouraging them to engage in social conversations/ collaborative learning with Flickr users and other students from all over the world.

Picnik and Image Manipulation

I really enjoyed using Picnik in this learning activity – who knew there was a far superior version to ‘Paint’ available free of charge on the web?

During this learning activity, I:

1. created a Picnik account,

2. uploaded an image,

3. edited the image using the various tools available (e.g. cropping, resizing, rotating, auto-fixing, sharpening, altering the colours/ contrast),

4. ‘created’ the image (adding further effects and a frame) and

5. saved the image to my computer, uploaded it Flickr and posted it to my blog.

I repeated this process using another image and the results can be seen below.

Original Photo...............................Photo After Editing.

Original Photo................................Photo After Editing.

Images: Personal photos taken and edited by Karlee Kreis

 

As you can see in the 'Coke Bottle Building' photo, the 'Neon' effect in Picnik enabled me to manipulate the image in a way that expressed the coke brand (and colour) and is far different from the original photo I took whilst on a study tour in China (I come from a Marketing background and previously worked for Coca-Cola Amatil).  Note that the image/ title at the top of my Blog (Karlee's e.Journal) was editied in Picnik and I found the process of customising an image for my blog very rewarding,

Picnik would be a great image manipulation tool for students wishing to edit images for class projects, their wiki or blog. Using the site could become a lesson in itself, where students learn how to manipulate digital images and then perhaps post them onto their (or the class) Flickr account.  The hands-on nature of Picnik would also foster creativity and could be used in learning experiences underpinned by engagement theory (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999). For instance, students could collaborate (relate) to build an online photo gallery of digitally altered images on Flickr on the topic being studied (Create) and make these images available to an outside audience, be it their peers, the teacher or parents (Donate).

For lower primary grades, the images created could be used in special occasion cards (e.g. for Mother’s Day) or compiled and presented in a power point presentation to parents during a parent conference in the classroom. 

In fact, I am so enthusastic about Picnik, that I will be working with the learners in my ELP class next week to edit an image in Picnik for their Mother's Day card (example left).

Picnik is yet another digital tool that enables active, hands-on learning (as students use multiple senses, in an active process to produce a product as per Dale's Cone (Abilene Christian University Adams Center for Teaching Excellence, 2000). Referring to the Learning Pyramid, using Picnik would also enable higher retention of the skills learnt and the learning experience itself through practical experience (Abilene Christian University Adams Center for Teaching Excellence, 2000). Picnik is my new favourite website and I can't wait to share it with the learners I'm currently working with.

A Practical Consideration re. Student Use of Wikis

From my readings and learning activities in this course, it is evident that the educational power of WIKIs resides primarily in their capabilities for collaborative group work.

With that said, here are some questions for my followers to ponder...... do YOU consider WIKIs the ultimate tool for democratic knowledge creation - a place where students can write, edit, negotiate and create a storehouse of knowledge and collaborate on projects or... will the challenges associated with content management deter their use in your classroom?

Does the potential for student miss-use and editing issues concern you at all? Should we be giving students free rein with this technology? Will our use of this ICT be a matter of student maturity and teacher instruction?

It is my view that the tremendous collaboration and learning opportunities offered by WIKIs are too great for editorial concerns to prevent student use. I have included some thoughts below and ways in which 'easy edit' challenges can be overcome.

The open source nature of WIKIs lends them to potential vandalism and miss-use (by both students and third parties). To alleviate these concerns, teachers could choose to restrict WIKI access to only their students and administer the site – monitoring the content and edits. However, as Richardson (2006, pp. 64-65) notes, “giving students editorial control can imbue in them a sense of responsibility and ownership for the site and minimize the risk of someone adding something offensive.”

In the pursuit of knowledge creation and collaboration, teachers may therefore choose to empower their students with the responsibility for editorial control. I feel that in an information–rich world where digital literacy, knowledge and collaboration skills are becoming increasingly important, this approach would be beneficial for students. It would teach them to be critical of the content they (and others) write and edit on the WIKI – affording opportunities for students to negotiate with other collaborators in relation to the content published and to extend and refine their knowledge (DoL 3) through analysis, as they consider the relevance and accuracy of content (Marzano et al., 2009).

The Power of Wikis – Write, Edit, Collaborate, Interact.

My last post touched on ways in which WIKIs can be used in the classroom, using the example of my ‘Visual Art Space.’ However, the extensive opportunities for using WIKIs in the classroom and enhancing pedagogical practice, requires further elaboration.

So, now that I know what a WIKI is and how to create one… the important questions are: how can teachers and students use WIKIs in the classroom and how can this ICT enhance student learning?

One way to use WIKIs in the classroom is to create an online, tailor-made textbook for your subject or class (in much the same way that WIKIpedia is established). Students in a chemistry class for example, could construct a text book on the periodic table/ chemical elements in collaboration with; their teacher, peers and even chemistry classes in other schools. Images, articles, multimedia files, power point presentations and ‘prac’ write ups could all be added to the WIKI. Individuals or groups of students could even be made responsible for creating a page related to a particular element and this, in turn, could form part of their assessment – be it formative or summative. In this way, WIKIs can become a tailor-made resource, designed and edited to suit student’s needs and the learning context. Furthermore, student collaboration would create a sense of belonging as they learn (as recommended by Kunc, 1999) and their active involvement in the learning process would increase learning effectiveness and retention.

As mentioned earlier, WIKIs are designed to be a shared repository of knowledge, which grows over time and in this example, successive chemistry students could add and edit the WIKI – utilising and expanding on the knowledge base established by previous chemistry classes. This example demonstrates the Relate-Create-Donate concept underpinning Kearsley and Shneiderman’s (1998) engagement theory. This is because learning is occurring in a collaborative group context i.e. chemistry class students (‘relate’), is project-based as students are developing a textbook on the period table (‘create’) and there is an external/ authentic focus as their peers and future chemistry students can use the resource ( ‘donate’).

WIKIs would be particularly useful in a primary school context for creative writing and group activities centred on a unit of work theme. A year 5 class could create a creative writing piece on a WIKI were all students have the opportunity to add to and edit the story. The story would no doubt evolve from the original concept and this activity would encourage students to develop their literacy skills and consciously apply habits of mind from the DoL, particularly creative thinking by generating “new ways of viewing a sitation that are outside the boundaries of standard conventions (Marzano et al., 2009, p. 6). In this example, the WIKI would also be a useful tool for extending and refining knowledge as students analyse the errors and perspectives of others (DoL 3).

A WIKI could also be used by small class groups (or the entire class) to collaborate on a project, for example students could create a WIKI all about dolphins during an “under the sea” unit of work. In this example, it would be important to allow students to choose the subject of their WIKI, be it dolphins, coral, whales etc. to further foster ownership and positive attitudes towards classroom tasks (DoL 1).

In our tutorial for ICTs, Scot Alred (the course co-ordinator), explained how WIKIs are being used internationally. Schools in Singapore and Hong Kong for example, have focus on group work and problem based learning. Groups of students at an International School in Singapore frequently use WIKIs to collaborate (often over an entire term or school year) and develop solutions to problems assigned. This is a great example of students using knowledge meaningfully (through problem solving, invention and decision making for instance) as the work towards solving a problem (Marzano et al., 2009).

At the school level, entire curriculums or individual units of work could be housed on a WIKI. Using WIKIs in this way allows staff and teachers to easily access and edit units or lessons and provides transparent information about the content being taught to students, parents and the wider community. Richardson (2006) cites an innovative example - the entire national high school curriculum for South Africa is on a WIKI at wikibooks.org. Teaching professionals can also use WIKIs to create a library of lesson plans or teaching resources – available to other teachers to use (and perhaps fine tune) based on their requirements or experiences.

There are countless applications for teachers and students alike and although I hadn’t heard of WIKIs (with the exception of Wikipedia) prior to this course, I can certainly see myself using this valuable ICT in my career and in the classroom with my learners.

Wetpaint.com and My ‘Visual Art Space' WIKI

In my ICTs course, I built a wiki using wetpaint.com – a free website for creating and browsing wikis (popular alternatives include; Pbwiki.com and Wikispaces.com). At first glance, the majority of wikis on Wetpaint appear to be ‘fan sites.’ However, like blogs, wiki technology can be transferred and applied in an educational setting.

The process of creating a wiki using Wetpaint.com was surprisingly easy and following instruction, could be accomplished by all students with basic computer skills. After a couple of practice wikis (http://www.letscarpool.wetpaint.com/ and http://www.amateurartists.wetpaint.com/), I decided to create a wiki that could be used by high-school visual arts students. My wiki site "Visual Art Space: A Place to Share" can be found at http://www.visualartspace.wetpaint.com/. The wiki is designed as a place for art students to; connect, share their artworks, announce exhibitions, and discuss anything art related;  from issues they are having with creating a particular piece to tips for other students in using a particular medium.

After signing up for a wetpaint.com account, the process of creating my wiki involved three easy steps. Firstly details for the wiki site were entered, namely; the site name, URL, a description of what the site is about and the general category (in this case “Arts”). Editing preferences where also chosen. I decided anyone who joins my wiki site can edit it, add threads, add pages and the like, but no edits would be anonymous. This first step is shown in the image below.

The second step, involved selecting the site layout and confirming the site name.

The third step, was simply matter of completing a Captcha for security and site creation.

Once the “Visual Art Space” wiki was created, wetpaint asked me to email invitations to my contacts who may want to join and collaborate on the site. If I was teaching a high school art class and created the wiki for their use, it is here that I would enter the email addresses of my students (or other art students in the school) and send them an invitation to join the site. This wiki however, would be most beneficial for its users if art students from different high schools collaborated on the site. Therefore, if I intended this site for practical use, I would also inform art teachers or principals at other high schools (in my local area and beyond), asking them to pass on the invitation to art students at their school. In this way, a community of art students from geographically distant locations could unite and share on the wiki.

From here, it would be a matter of art students joining and collaborating on the wiki. With the ‘easy edit’ icon and ‘what you see is what you get’ software on wetpaint.com, students could edit the content on the wiki pages, without the need for advanced computer skills or HTML knowledge. There are pages/ features automatically available for the students to use. One such feature is a discussion forum. Here, students could post questions about an art assignment they are having trouble with, discuss artistic techniques, their favourite artists, introduce themselves or even create unrelated discussion threads in the “off-topic” forum.

There is also a ‘News’ feature where student could add their own news item to the site (for example details of an upcoming art exhibition). News could also be added via RSS feeds or twitter. For example, news from the Queensland Art Gallery website or a class blog could be fed directly to the wiki’s news page via RSS. Collaborators can also comment on news items. In the example given above, students could comment as to whether or not they will be attending the art exhibition.

The photo gallery feature would be particularly useful on this wiki as individuals can create their own album and upload images of their artworks. In the Visual Art Space wiki you will find “Karlee’s Photo Album” where I have upload photographs of some of my artworks for demonstration purposes. There is also a tool which enables users to create a thread in the discussion forum about individual photos. In much the same way, students could also use the video gallery to share videos from 'YouTube' or 'MSN Video' of their artworks, experiences etc.  Moreover, this wiki coud be used by art students to collaborate and problem solve on the wiki ('Relate'), sharing their artworks and developing an online gallery of work ('Create'), which could be viewed by teachers, peers, parents and other interested parties ('Donate').

Creating the “Visual Art Space: A Place to Share” wiki opened my eyes to the myriad of applications for wikis in the classroom and the way in which this ICT complements contemporary learning design theory. My next post will discuss various ways in which wikis can be both used to teach and be used by students.

Wikis...

As fun for students to use, as the word is to say!

An Introduction to Wikis

I've learnt of yet another new term (and excellent ICT) in this course - WIKI.

The term WIKI is derived from the Hawaiian word for quick: "wiki-wiki" (Richardson, 2006). WIKIs are a collection of freely expandable webpages, where visitors and collaborators write, re-write, edit, un-edit and publish work on the web (Fountain, 2005; Richardson, 2006). The beauty of WIKIs is that they can be accessed and edited by anyone, anytime, from anywhere in the world, and are designed to be “…a shared repository of knowledge with the knowledge base growing over time” (Goodwin-Jones, 2003). It is important to note that access and/ or editing rights can be available only to members of the WIKI or alternatively the WIKI can be open to all (as in the case of WIKIpedia).

Like blogs, WIKIs are created and maintained using free (non-technical) online publishing software located on a server. In comparison to blogs however, WIKIs provide more opportunities for site development, student collaboration and interaction (Pearce & Bass, 2008).

The most well known WIKI is WIKIpedia – a free online encyclopaedia. Anyone, wherever they are in the world, can create and edit content on the WIKIpedia WIKI site.

The vision of WIKIpedia founder, Jimmy Wales, to; create and distribute an extensive, high quality, free encyclopaedia to everyone on the planet, astounds me...

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”

Jimmy Wales, Founder of WIKIpedia
(Wales, 2004)