I've Got to Change the Most

Several weeks ago, I pondered the usage of a wiki in my fifth grade classroom. I knew I wanted to use one, but I wasn't exactly sure how. Now, I have more ideas about how to actually implement the wiki, and I have learned many valuable lessons about wikis. Today, I discovered some more profound statements in a article in Distance Education Report entitled New Technologies Help Build Learning Communities. (I found it using the UF Library Remote Login.)

The article is essentially an interview between the journal and Dr. Norman Garrett, Professor in the School of Business at Eastern Illinois University. The interview discusses the "mini-revolution" that is going on right now with the use of blogs, wikis, podcasts and RSS feed. Garrett offers some simple and insightful ideas about RSS, blogs, and podcasts, but I--of course--paid close attention to the wiki portion of the interview.

When discussing the use of wikis in his college classroom, Garrett states, "The hardest part for the teacher is you have to keep your hands off of it, other than just to make sure that it stays organized. You can't comment on things or critique what they put on there in a public way cause if you do then it looks like you're running it. It's designed to be peer-to-peer." Now, the age of his students and mine may be over a decade, if not two apart, and yet, I find this idea very fitting for my own class. I think that this is going to be the hardest thing for to do. I hope that when I find misinformation in our classroom wiki, that I won't be quick to correct it. I hope like Garrett I can "sit and monitor", and hopefully, my "students will come in and say, no that's not right, and they'll fix it." That is the ultimate goal: "It's peer to peer collaboration, not the teacher feeding them what the teacher wants them to have."

Of course, I really want to use a wiki mainly for this peer collaboration that it affords, but I know I will have to change my ideals about instruction. I am going to have to realize that I can't tell them they have something wrong, and "Go fix it!" I think my students are going to adapt to this new way of learning easily. I'm the one who is going to have to change the most.

Yep, More Mader

*Everytime I use the blockquote HTML code, it somehow messes up the alignment. Sorry.

Once again, I would like to examine the work of Stewart Mader. Today we will delve into his wikibook Using Wiki in Education. It is password protected, but there are some chapters that are available for free. I am discussing The New Learning Landscape, ch. 11, found at http://wikiineducation.com/display/ikiw/The+New+Learning+Landscape.

Mader begins by discussing how technology has, or could change, the standard classroom. With a shift from textbooks to networks, students will be able to gain more knowledge, and teachers will become facilitators of learning, rather than relayers of information.

Of course, Mader soon moves on to the wiki. This statement got me to thinking:

The first step is to overcome fear of new tools like Wikipedia, and explore
them with an open minded approach that considers how they could be used
effectively. Students already do this, and that's why they embraced Wikipedia a
(relatively) long time ago. When we teachers respond negatively to students'
mention of Wikipedia in class, or citation of it in their papers, we only make
ourselves look clueless and unwilling to advance our own thinking beyond the
resources we were told were acceptable when we were students.

Of course, I am a big proponent of wikis and their use in the classroom , or at least I think I am. Wait until next school year, and then ask me again. (Smile!) However, when I first read this statement, I wasn't entirely sure I agreed with it. We've discussed taking information found on wikis, especially Wikipedia, at face value, and we've even discussed how it might not be the best citation for a research paper. Then, I stopped pondering Mader's idea, and I read more. According to Mader, using wikis like Wikipedia opens doors to other learning activities. We should teach our students how to basically research their research. We should be:

[helping] them learn to back-up any information they find in Wikipedia by
checking secondary sources. for that matter, checking secondary sources needn't
be an arduous task; presented the right way to students it can be a fascinating
adventure, and finding either contradicting information or more detailed
supporting information can make a research paper or presentation all the more
interesting and engaging.

Mader goes on to discuss the benefits of social collaboration when using a wiki:

Using a wiki reduces the instances of students working in isolation and
provides a good foundation for a learning community. It also makes the
knowledge construction process much more transparent, and offers a teacher
many more points of assessment and guidance than only seeing a student's or
group's final paper or presentation.

I really do think that the history page gives teachers a true picture of what students are actually learning. We can see right on the page what errors and misinformation they have corrected. This also allows students to start thinking about their thinking. This metacognitive process is outstanding, and I absolutely can't wait to start using a wiki in my classroom.

Stewart Mader Interview

First of all, I would like to thank Stewart Mader for allowing me access to his wikibook Using Wiki in Education. I plan on examining parts of it this week, but I would first like to discuss an interview between Mader and Débora Batello of Contos da Escola (Stories of the School). It can be located on his blog at the following link: http://www.ikiw.org/2007/04/11/7-questions-about-education-in-the-digital-era/.

Batello asked Mader some very thought-provoking questions, and Mader had very insightful answers. When asked about the teacher's role in the Digital Era, Mader responded, "the teachers’ role has changed from being the source of a limited amount of information to guiding students in their use of all the information on a particular subject that’s available." I couldn't agree more. Do you remember your childhood teachers? I do. He/she was limited to the information in my classroom textbooks. At the time, I thought they were brilliant, and they probably were, but in today's society, there is more information widely available and it is the responsibility of steering students in the direction of discovering this information.

Of course, I was more interested in the wiki specific questions. Mader did address the differences between wikis and blogs, and as I have stated many of the wikis I have found are not taking full advantage of the wiki's capablilities and are using it as a blog. I do not discount the use of blogs. I obviously value its importance. I have gained so much valuable information just by using it, but as Mader states, "Using a wiki is good for collaborating on group projects, having a student write a paper that the teacher can read and edit as a student writes it, instead of after they turn in a final draft. It’s also good for building a persistent record of what students have done in a course. "

Mader addresses the biggest issue with technology related projects in the classroom:

• The biggest failure I’ve seen is to use technology as an after-thought, or “in addition” to the traditional ways of teaching a course. For it to be successful, it needs to be integrated fully into the course, and assignments have to count for course credit.

Now, imagine giving your class an assignment and making them spend lots of valuable classroom time on it, and then saying, "Ah, this doesn't really count." As a student, I would feel robbed, especially if I had put a lot of time and effort in to the project.

Once again, however, I am led back to the assessment issue. I know it is important to give credit for the wiki, but just how should I do this? Is the wiki rubric I posted earlier sufficient?

Wiki=Media=Real Life

I remember watching The Muppet Babies every Saturday morning as a child. I loved seeing the antics of baby Kermit and baby Piggy. I also loved seeing Nanny, clad in her two-tone green stockings, yet, I could never see her face. Nanny was always protrayed in her socks and purple sweater, but you could never see her face. I do remember going to the television and trying to look up, perhaps catching a glimpse of her face. I never did. Now, I realize I could have never seen her beautiful face, but at the time I didn't know that.




Byron and Nass (1996) examine issues just like this in Chapter 1 of The Media Equation. In fact, they examined this very idea, stating, "Children often take television literally. They'll soon be older, and will be wise enough to know better" (p. 3). As I stated, I did become older and wiser, and so I realize that Nanny's face was never meant to be seen, no matter how hard I strained my neck upwards. Sadly, I do know adults who still seem to equate television with real life. My mother gets upset when watching The Young and the Restless. "Don't kiss him. He is sleeping with your best friend." You get it. Now, I know she doesn't think that the character can hear her, but she gets so involved she forgets it isn't real. This interaction my mother is having with her television is "fundamentally social and natural" (p. 5). Byron and Nass equate that media does in fact equal real life. Of course, we know it really doesn't, but we do react to it as if it does.

"People respond socially and naturally to media even though they believe it is not responsible to do so, and even though they don't these responses characterize themselves" (p. 7).

How does this relate to the wiki world? Consider these two scenarios, both relaying Wikipedia falsehoods:


Comedian Sinbad was erroneously reported dead by Wikipedia just a few weeks ago(azstarnet.com). Many mourners called and gave their sympathy, but surprisingly his own daughter called as well. Wouldn't she have known of her dad's death before Wikipedia? Media, including wikis, have become so profound, that she believed his death before actually hearing it from any real family members.



Journalist John Seigenthaler was stated in Wikipedia, References, and Answers entries to have been involved in the killings of John F. and Robert Kennedy, and surprisingly people believed it. Seighenthaler retaliated by threatening legal recourse and writing an editorial about it. I am sure that most people know that Lee Harvey Oswald was determined to be JFK's killer, and although there are thousands of conspiracy theories, I have never even heard of Seigenthaler. His life was turned upside down because there are so many people that believe everything they read on the internet, including a wiki, is true.


Now, I am sure there are many more inaccuracies floating around on all wikis, not just Wikipedia. It would also seem that consumers are taking all the information on the wiki at face-value. If someone took the time to write it, it must be true. Right? After all, as Byron and Nass exclaim, "The automatic response is to accept what seems to be real as in fact real" (p. 8).

Wiki Rubric

In an effort to find some way to assess a classroom wiki, I did find this rubric located at http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson979/WikiRubric.pdf. I am not certain, but it seems to be a general rubric to assess any rubric.

The rubric is divided into five categories. They are:

1. Content
2. Organization
3. Attractiveness
4. Contribution to the Group and
5. Accuracy.

Each of these categories is given ratings between 4 and 1 with 4 being the highest score possible. As would be expected, the score decreases as the quality of the material decreases.

All of these categories seem like important categories to assess; however, when I begin implementation of my classroom wiki, I don't know if I should have so many criteria to assess. Maybe I should start off choosing three? If I did, I already know which three I would choose: content, organization, and contribution to the group.

I would choose these three categories because they seem to be the "meat and potatoes" of all wiki practice. Content and organization are necessary to the whole structure of wiki and contributing to the group assure that true collaboration is taking place.

Now, does this mean I think attractiveness and accuracy are unnecessary? Absolutely not! I just think that attractiveness will come with time. After my students have become more proficient in actual wiki usage, I think they will naturally want to make the wiki look better. Once this natural progression starts to take place, I will add attractiveness to the rubric.

As for accuracy, I definitely think accuracy is a must, but if my fifth graders are misspelling a word here or there, I am not going to freak. I know that I have students who are better spellers and have better grammar, and I also know they are the students who will revise another student's shortcomings. Right now, I am primarily concerned with the content. This particuliar rubric does address HTML, but I am not going to require my students to know any HTML code. I plan on using a wiki that does not require any HTML code.

These are my ideas right now. I hope to find another rubric to compare. Of course, I will have to devise my own rubric for my wiki, but this is a good start.

Wikis for Assessment...Still Need Assessment for Wikis!

Ann's comment drove me to look for more ways to assess wikis, and while my efforts (and hers) haven't proved fruitful, I did find a site about using wikis to assess. It can be located at http://www.futurelab.org.uk/viewpoint/art96.htm.

McAlpine states, "the key transition periods of upper secondary and further education, groupwork tends to be less common. One of the main reasons for this is the difficulty of awarding individual qualifications on the basis of group work." I realize it may be difficult to award group work scores for higher grade levels including graduate school; after all, this is the reason Dr. Ferdig has us use the discussion forum when working on group projects. This allows him to see who has contributed what and how often. I also think that this idea could be used in the lower grades as well. When my students are completing group assignments, I do walk around and try my best to analyze who is doing what and how much; however, it is not always a simple task.

The author goes on to state, "Difficulties in assessing groupwork have contributed to an assessment culture which dismisses groupwork as a supplementary activity, rather than a core learning experience to be valued." To me, group work is wonderful. I have seen low-performing students excel when in a group, and not just because they were with the "smart kids" but because they were genuinely interested in working together and learning. In this class, I have gained more insight from my group than any professor could ever give me. They have opened my eyes to things I would never think of.

The wiki affords the teacher the ability to assess individuals within a group setting. McAlpine lists the attributes we are allowed to assess:

• who did the majority of the work
• who provided the main ideas behind the document
• who evaluated the document as it went along
• who was unhelpful or obstructive
• who acted as peacemaker and ensured that people were kept on task
• the existence of conflict among participants about the direction of the document
• the methods of conflict resolution that were employed.

All of these items can be applied to the elementary school classroom.

"The wiki environment encourages cooperation between the team members, because everyone can see the joint effort - both in terms of products and also in terms of what each of the members is contributing. This makes it harder for people either to 'freeload' or to take over." This is another quote by the author that I feel is very important. When I give group assignments in class, there are the occassional students who want to lay around and do nothing, and there are the overachievers who have to have everything perfect, and--therefore--they must do it all on their own. If I assign a wiki group project, students would be more mindful of their's and others' contributions.

In the end, the author concludes, as do I that using a wiki allows group work to follow with its true nature and be collaborative. Because of this collaboration, it allows the wiki to become a valid assessment tool.

Common Goals

If you google "wiki in eduation" the name Stewart Mader comes up quite a it. Apparently, he has written a wiki book, Using Wiki in Education, but as I am a mother, a teacher, and a graduate student, I just can't shell out the nineteen bucks for it right now. Maybe at the end of the month...as I only get paid one time a month. Yikes, but diapers come first!

Today, I actually visited his blog and this entry http://blogs.atlassian.com/news/2007/04/building_the_ri.html. While short, it had one statement that I whole-heartedly agreed with, "Successful wiki communities need focus and a common goal to attract the right people, and the brilliant simplicity of the wiki to build, nurture, and grow their shared knowledge."

Of course, his entry explores the seemingly failures of big name wikis like the LA Times Wikitorial and Amazon's Amapedia project, but I began to think of this statement in terms of my fifth graders. I obviously can't get a wiki space and tell them to have fun. I have to give them goals--common goals. Starting simply, I might just have them wiki about ONE particuliar topic in a unit, and not a whole unit. So, back to that classification unit...

I could have my students begin wiking about the five kingdoms of living things. After a period of time, I would add goals. Let's break those kingdoms down into phylums, etc., etc. This would add a little more structure but at the same time allow for creative collaboration.

This blog entry also gave very useful links, including a link to Mader's wikipatterns, a look at increasing the traffic on your wiki by examining the patterns that wiki creators create. This is interesting, and I am not entirely sure I understand it well, but I intend to delve further into it soon.