In his blog article, Wiki’s: Communities Collaborating to Create, Michael Ponza approaches the use of Wikipedia from a variety of angles including academic and emotional. He begins by addressing the 5 W’s of Wikipedia; First in the form of a detailed list and second in the form of a questioning essay. He follows this with a well-designed chart that documents different examples of how Wikipedia can be used in a classroom setting. Finally, he finished with his own thoughts on several case studies, and on Wikis in general. What I found most striking about his response was the emotional attachment he placed on certain ideas. The reasoning behind teachers and older generations’ distrust of Wikipedia as a source was fear. I never really thought of it that way before, but in essence, I would agree. There is definitely a fear of inaccuracy when using Wikipedia – even in myself. It has been so ingrained in many generations of learners to mistrust sources that are not in a well-established print form, that it isn’t surprising that we fear things we feel might be untrue. Well done, Michael!

In Ravan Magrath’s blog post she began with her overall impressions of the articles we read. I must say I agreed wholeheartedly with her opinions when I had to write my own blog article. However, just as Ravan I found a lot of useful information in those articles, to the point that it changed my mind about the use of Wikipedia as a reliable source. In her blog article, Ravan talks about the ideas of internalization and externalization and how they apply to Wiki articles. She also says that she feels the Wiki is a good platform for novices to become apprentices through the creation of articles by individuals with more mastery over a topic. Overall, I think Ravan’s deductions were spot on and well-stated. Great work, Ravan!

In Alex Good’s blog article, How Tricky is Wiki? she starts off sounding the most opposed to using Wikipedia as a source. However, it was clear that the reading from the week swayed even her opinion of Wikis. I think this was solidified by her own research into a topic that she was an expert in herself, and seeing that the article she looked up was verified by a team of experts who worked for WikiHow. I would agree with her assertation that she connected more with the articles that provided practical classroom applications for Wikipedia. Personally, I am always looking for ways to incorporate things into my own classroom and instruction, so reading about Wiki applications in an elementary setting was definitely beneficial. Alex finished her article with her review of a few examples from the readings and her thoughts on those articles. Awesome job, Alex!

Some consistencies I found between all three articles were that they all felt some kind of caution towards Wikis in terms of their accuracy. By the end of each blog post, all three bloggers talked about how the weekly readings had changed their minds about Wikis. I would also lump myself into that grouping as my opinion was changed as well. I also think that as individuals who either teach or work in an educational setting, we all (myself included, again) felt the most useful information came from the article that described situations that were applicable to our everyday situations in our careers. While it is important to have a solid background in research and analysis of each topic we cover, I think it is just as important, if not more so, that we have examples that are tied to academia. It was also interesting to see everyone’s different writing styles even though they all discussed the same topic. All in all, great work everyone!

This week’s readings and videos were especially helpful in seeing ways that students and youth engage in a participatory culture. Henry Jenkins gives his own take on what constitutes a participatory culture in his video and as cited in “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21^st Century”. Basically, all of his 11 constituents boil down to different groupings of ways people interact with the online community. Most are ideas that we have read about in detail in previous weeks’ readings, but others such as networking, have barely been touched on.

In terms of learning and teaching, I think the most important aspect of participatory culture is collaborating with others. No matter what job or career our students choose in their futures, they are going to have to work with others. They will be hired by someone, have coworkers, or be their own boss and have to communicate their ideas to sell their product or service. Programs such as Scratch and games such as World of Warcraft are just two ways cited in previous readings that both youth and adults can collaborate together. Scratch has online communities of individuals who upload their creations for public review. World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online game in which your character can interact with other characters in both chat and activities in the game. By participating in either of these online communities, you are building skills in collaboration.

Another important aspect of participatory culture is creativity. As an art teacher, I feel I know a lot about teaching students to be creative. However, the coursework we have done so far has really opened my eyes to the fact that there are many more tools out there that are teaching students to be just as creative as they would be in art, and in some cases even more so. In the art room, we create works of art using a specific set of tools with a specific set of guidelines. In the digital world students have limitless programs and tools at their disposal to create with what they choose. There are still guidelines and sets of tools depending on what they are doing, but otherwise, the possibilities are limitless.

It is interesting to compare my own content area with all of the Web 2.0 tools we have learned about thus far and make connections to new ways I could be teaching my students using an entirely new approach of digital learning and learning communities. I have mentioned before, just as the teacher referenced in chapter 7 from “Making Projects, Making Friends” (Brennan et al.), that critique groups would be a great way to use Web 2.0 tools in my classroom. However, with this most recent pairing of articles and videos, I realized I could expand that idea even further to critique and share artwork with other students and classrooms in other parts of the country or world. Fantastic! I look forward to reading my classmates’ blogs in the coming days and hope they are all making as many new connections to their content area as I have been.

After reading and listening to the resources for this week’s blog post, I get the sense that creativity is the biggest key to using wikis in the classroom. There were many different examples given of everything from wikis about video games to wikis about laboratory research findings. All focus on collaboration and a community of learners and educators. It would be an easy way to include group work for a project in a setting where all students had a laptop or computer access at home and at school. In the article The Power of Wikis, the author described something that I would have loved while I was in school, and that is the ability for shy people to have a voice in a project and to feel ownership as a contributor. I think everyone has had an experience in school when they had to work in a group with at least one person who wanted to do everything and one person who contributed very little because either they were shy or lazy. I get the feeling that wikis could help to solve this issue in some ways because it would allow all parties involved to contribute on their own time and in their own way. The applications of such group work would only be limited by the creativity of the teacher.

In terms of validity, I think that that too is in the hands of the teacher. There could be very shallow or very complex uses of the wiki in collaborative and community instruction. I think that the key is using it in a way that the communication and sharing of ideas add to the education of each party involved. For example, a wiki used as part of a group assignment where students need to plan something out or share research for the benefit of the group would be two valid ways a teacher could include a wiki in their lesson or unit. In my personal field of art, there could be a sharing of ideas about the intent of an artist, either famous or up and coming. Students could discuss their own feelings and thoughts about what an artist is trying to accomplish and the quality of their work on a wiki. They could then be required to respond in much the same way that we do in our blogs each week. This could open them up to different ideas and viewpoints in a much shorter time than just lecturing and sharing in a classroom. It would also be interesting to see students handle a wiki critique about their work. Each student could share an image of their artwork in response to a prompt or assignment. They could then critique each other’s works in the form of a wiki and share ideas in that way.

In summation, I think that a wiki is a good tool for use in a collaborative learning environment. It seems as though its limitations lie mostly within the creator or instructor and that with good guidance would come good responses and discussions. However, as with most of the Web 2.0 tools we have looked at thus far, they are a good tool to accompany traditional classroom instruction and not meant to replace it.