Monthly Archives: June 2018

Learning Wiki

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I am not sure why, but understanding what a wiki actually is has been hard to wrap my head around.  I thought it was just like any other web page, but I was wrong. Like most people when i hear the word wiki my mind connects to Wikipedia. When I was in high school and college it was taught that Wikipedia was an unreliable source due the fact that anyone anywhere can change it.  It was taboo. Don’t use it, don’t reference it.  So when I began to learn about wiki I could not help but associate it with Wikipedia.  The readings this week were helpful in debunking some of my learned biases against Wikipedia.

What I Learned About Wiki

  • A wiki is a website that allows users to not only have access to the content on the site but to revise and change it.
  • Wikis are social, that is they allow the sharing of knowledge for the purpose of learning. (People are not actually present but leave their content as an artifact of their presence.)
  • Once a person starts a wiki then each member of the group, that has access, can contribute their own knowledge to the wiki.
  • A wiki can be public or private.
  • Wikis can have multiple pages and the information on the wiki is displayed in the order in which it is posted.

Here is a short book I created using Book Creator about what a wiki is. Book Creator

Knowledge Building

I spent quite a bit of time exploring the Flat Classroom Project by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis.  According to what I read about the Flat Classroom Project it is an online global connection between learners across the world to collaborate and co-create on a project.  I find the notion of flattening the walls of the classroom and extending learning opportunities global, fascinating. According to the website, “The aim in this project is to encourage students in different places to collaborate, not just communicate, and to enhance understanding of cultures and lifestyles beyond the immediate environment.” Cress and Kimmerie (2007) state that when a person contributes “to the development of a wiki a person first has to externalize his/her knowledge.”  Through the process of externalization a person’s knowledge can deepen.  This occurs because it is necessary when writing about a topic to restructure it in a way that will make sense to your readers and relate it to other information on the wiki that another author may have written. With the use of a wiki the students are building and transferring new knowledge and this allows them opportunities to internalize the information learned. When new knowledge is internalized it interacts with prior knowledge, or schema, and creates new knowledge combining prior and newly acquired knowledge.  If we look at the text  by Ulrike Cress and Joachim Kimmerie, the authors reference the work of Piaget in that with the use of wiki a person can acquire information learned and use it to change their schema to better understand the information; essentially they are modifying and creating new schema.  This theory of Piaget can be applied to the Flat Classroom Project because the students are continuously acquiring information through collaboration with others and reorganizing and structuring it to interact with their own individual schema.  This knowledge bullding occurs when they are externalizing and internalizing information from the wiki.

Knowledge Police (Monitoring)

With all of the online revising, editing, and collaborating there has to be a way to ensure that the information put on the wiki is accurate and valid. Just how do they do that?  When I read the article How to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool, I found my answer.  Wikipedia has a group of editors who developed five policies to safeguard the reliability of the work.

  1. Free Content; all writing must be original and can be edited and reused by others
  2. Reliable Sources; information that is the most reliable is fact checked by third-party sources such as academic journals, published books by academic presses , and newspapers
  3. Neutral POV; written work should be free of bias and include all significant viewpoints
  4. Notability; topic is of importance and has reliable sources
  5. Good Faith; all users add their work with the intent to better the content of the wiki

After reading the five policies from Wikipedia’s editors I was honestly still a bit skeptical. It wasn’t until I read How to Use Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool by Adrianne Wadewitz that I understood. Wadewitz compares the global editing and collaborating on a wiki to that of the authors of the encyclopedia. Both a wiki and an encyclopedia are collections of information gathered and refined by multiple writers and it may be impossible to expect it to be completely free of bias and misconceptions, no matter how hard the writer tries to do so.  Of course having such an amazing amount of content on a wiki such as Wikipedia, it can be assumed that not all information can be checked in a timely manner. In addition, having a wiki on a larger scale with a multitude of collaborators, the more people involved in adding and editing content the more challenging it may be to authenticate the work, while on the other hand the more contributors involved also increases the information and content to be learned.  The authors of the text said it perfectly when they stated that “a person’s individual knowledge is a resource for other peoples’ learning.” (Kafai, 2006; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994)

As teachers creating a wiki for student use in the classroom I would make sure that privacy policies are established so that the students can focus on having a shared collaborative resource that only they can revise and edit. Keeping the wiki small, either within the class or with just a small group of students working together it may be easier for the teacher to monitor the quality of information the students are adding to the wiki. One way to create a wiki in a small group may be to have students work on a class wiki for an ongoing science investigation.  Students can begin by adding their schema about the investigation and predictions as to what might happen next.  As they investigate teams can add their data, new schema, and predictions based on their new evidence as well as interact with each other to determine what steps they might take next in their investigation. By allowing the students to act as contributors to the wiki as well as collaborators with other teams they have opportunities to both externalize and internalize their knowledge and to infer and deepen their knowledge.

Teaching students about the five key policies are essential prior to them creating and collaborating on a wiki yet it is not fool proof.  No matter what age our students are, they may be writing opinions and misconceptions on their wiki.  We can hope that others on their wiki team will find and fix errors but it might not happen.

Check out this link to a video that explains what a wiki is.  The video is very simple and for me that was extremely helpful!

 

Technology Tool List

I created my list for the use in an elementary classroom, although many of the tools on my list can be used in a K-12 classroom and beyond. Below are the ones that I use the most often in my classroom either as a way to drive instruction/learning or to promote sharing to a public audience.  There are some that I use as a way for my students to collaborate however, as I teach 2nd grade, we had to work up to our current level of collaboration. This class is teaching me to look at technology through a wider lens than my early elementary one and I admit, it’s a work in progress.

  1. G Suite for Education  (https://edu.google.com/k-12-solutions/g-suite/?modal_active=none)

G Suite is a collection of tools offered by Google for students and teachers to use in and out of the classroom.  From email, docs, slides, hangout, forms, and classroom there are many choices available. In order to utilize this format all students need a Google account for access.  Classroom allows teachers to assign student work and provide virtual feedback in the form of comments and grades. Students can share docs, forms, and spreadsheets with peers to collaborate and hangout is a great way to hold virtual meetings with classrooms in different schools or to ask questions of experts in the community and beyond.

G Suite for Education– Knowledge Construction; Critical Thinking: Evaluating, Analyzing, and Connecting.

Examples:

This first example is one that a teacher shared on Google + in the Seesaw Ambassadors community.  I thought it was a great example of how two classes on opposite sides of the country used Google Apps and Seesaw to collaborate on a shared creation experience called Playing at the Farm.

Playing at the Farm

Click for an article on G Suite for Education

Click for a video on G Suite for Education

 

2. Seesaw (https://web.seesaw.me) 

Seesaw is a student driven digital portfolio that can follow them throughout their school career.  Parents and families are given an access code which allow them to view, like, and comment on their child’s work as it is posted.  Once the teacher sets up the roster the student is able to sign in with a QR code that the teacher posts in the classroom. Teachers can assign activities for a whole class or differentiate activities to be assigned to individual or small groups of students.  In addition to the activity feature students can upload documents/files, take photographs, videos, attach links, and draw. When students post to their journal they have the option to record, add text, or caption to their work. Seesaw can be used through all content areas.  Students can take a photo of a page they are reading and use the drawing feature to text map the page. Instead of writing a weekly letter to parents about what happened that week in school the student can take turns writing and/or recording their ‘Week In Review’ to post. For a social studies lesson about geography the teacher can assign a link to a video which students can watch and respond to.  With the use of the classroom blog students can connect and collaborate with other classrooms.

Seesaw-Critical Thinking: Evaluating, Analyzing, and Connecting; Metacognitive and Self-Regulated Reflection

Examples:

SAMR Model Using Seesaw

Seesaw – Making the Evidence of Understanding More Visible

 

A student shares a model on Seesaw that she and her partner built using solid figures.

3. Nearpod (https://nearpod.com/)

Nearpod was new to me this year and in all honesty it took me awhile to implement because there were many other Web 2.0 technologies that I was using already.  Once I gave Nearpod a chance I found I liked it and would recommend this technology to all my teacher friends! Nearpod offers a collection of premade lessons ranging in content and grade (K-12).  Teachers can also create their own lessons in Nearpod. Nearpod is an interactive presentation that can be used in a variety of ways. First, the presentation can be done as a whole group using an interactive whiteboard.  Next, the lesson can be taught live with each student following along on their device. In the live lesson students are not able to advance to the next slide and are made to wait for the teacher to move forward. The paid version of Nearpod has a student paced option where the student can move along at their own pace. I think this would be useful when the lesson is being used as a review or for formative assessment.  Regardless of the version Nearpod collects student responses and provides a report for each student that it send to the teacher. I use the free version of Nearpod so I was limited to using the live lesson version as well as a limit of 50MB of storage. I found I reached that capacity before the end of the school year. Next year I will upgrade to the paid version which offers more features that I am excited to try.

Nearpod-Knowledge Construction

Examples:

Deliver Engaging Lessons with Nearpod

A Case Study: The Effect of Nearpod on Reading Comprehension, Focus, and Engagement

Blog about Nearpod

Nearpod Video

 

4. Book creator (https://bookcreator.com/)

Book creator is an iPAD app that my young learners LOVE! They use it to create books filled with text, images, and even audio.  To begin we used it to create an All About Me book that they were able to share with their classmates. As my students began to get more comfortable with it we created our non-fiction books about optimal conditions for growing cucumbers and even dabbled in graphic novels to culminate a lesson about dialogue.  Another feature that we used in Book Creator was app smashing our work into Seesaw so that the students can add it to their portfolio and share it with their families.

Book Creator– Knowledge Construction; Critical Thinking: Evaluating, Analyzing, and Connecting

 

Examples:

50 ways to use Book Creator in your classroom

Hosting a “Book Tasting” with Book Creator

 

5. Canva (https://www.canva.com/)

Canva is a free website that my students used this year.  They are able to sign in with their Google accounts, which is wonderful for 2nd graders, it’s one less login and password for them to remember!  Using Canva they can create graphics using various templates such as poster, logo, infographic, flyer, and invitation. Students can invite other students to be a part of their design team and work together to create a product.  There is a large amount of free fonts, elements such as images, shapes, frames, and even backgrounds they can choose from. Images saved in the Google Drive can be uploaded as well. This year my students created posters for their PBL projects, invitations for families to attend Market Day, created bookmarks to hand out at a school wide Dr. Seuss celebration, and infographics for reading groups. Work that my students created on Canva can also be downloaded, saved to Google Drive and then uploaded to digital portfolios on Seesaw.

Canva– Organization, and Integration with Prior Knowledge; Critical Thinking: Evaluating, Analyzing, and Connecting

 

A Lesson on Visual Poetry using Canva

13 Ways to Use Canva in Your Classroom

Canva for Education

An example of a poster a 2nd grader made on Canva.

Hsu, Ching, and Crabowski,  identify 4 cognitive processes enabled by Web 2.0 technologies below is how I would classify my list of tech tools.

  •   G Suite for Education– Knowledge Construction; Critical Thinking: Evaluating, Analyzing, and Connecting.
  • Seesaw-Critical Thinking: Evaluating, Analyzing, and Connecting; Metacognitive and Self-Regulated Reflection
  • nearpod-Knowledge Construction
  • Book Creator– Knowledge Construction; Critical Thinking: Evaluating, Analyzing, and Connecting
  • Canva– Organization, and Integration with Prior Knowledge; Critical Thinking: Evaluating, Analyzing, and Connecting

The 80% Bicyclist

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I really enjoyed listening to Sal Khan speak in the TED Talk video this week.  I have used Khan Academy in my classroom and my students like the videos.  Khan said that we can use technology to humanize and flip the classroom.  The concept of flipping a classroom was new to me but he makes an excellent point.  There is a significant amount of time spent with the teacher in front of the room teaching a whole group lesson.  This leaves little time for a teacher to interact and conference with students to assess how they are doing and to clear up any misconceptions.  Additionally, with the use of a Web 2.0 tool such as Khan Academy, the student can continue to work on a concept until he/she reaches a level of mastery; that doesn’t always happen in the classroom. In a traditional classroom the teacher introduces a new concept through lecture, modeling, and guided practice.  Students are then sent to either practice the new concept with a small group or independently.  After a few days an assessment is given and then the next day the class moves on to the next concept.  At my school we allow students an opportunity for “second chance learning” only if they do not pass an assessment, but that is it.  Then we move on.  Khan compares this to teaching someone to ride a bicycle, allowing them to practice and then assessing them.  After giving them a grade of 80% the student is handed a unicycle without clearing up misconceptions or reviewing the 20% he did not know.  He said it sounds ridiculous.  He’s right!  His analogy of the bicycle and the classroom are also correct.

Additionally, the use of Web 2.0 technologies can help students to become active participants in the creation of their learning while promoting social interaction.   Hsu, Ching, Grabowski state “Web 2.0 technologies open up individual knowledge construction, organization, and regulation for group review, construction, organization, and regulation.”  (p.355). Take for example a lesson created on Google Classsroom on picture graphs that includes a link to a video from Khan Acadmey to use as a initial introduction or as review.  Using features such as docs, slides, forms, or even sheets students can gather data from their classmate to use to create their own picture graph.  Graphs can be posted in Google Classroom where the teacher can provide virtual feedback in the form of comments and peers in the class can post comments as well. This will allow opportunities for self-reflection or group reflection if the students worked in small teams. Having students engage in these various activities they are becoming the creators of their learning by assessing the information they received from the video, conversations with peers, and evaluating that information to draw conclusions to share.

Second, I would like to use this opportunity to reflect on my post from last week.  Thank you for your kind words about the PBL project that my students have been working on.  It has been such a rewarding experience for both them and myself.  Thinking about the comments I received allows me to reflect and focus on how to improve for next year.  How can I make my project more interest-driven?  At first, I thought there were definitely elements to the project that centered on students interest.  such as, the students choosing what business to have and who they would like to be business partners with.  They choose their name, logo, slogan and even the model that they presented.  I had students writing and recording commercials, creating info-graphics on Canva, creating and displaying flyers and brochures. What I have learned in the first 5 weeks of this class is that there is more to connected learning than student choice.

In the text Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level: Issues and Challenges, Hin and Subramaniam suggest that due to so many instructional possibilities using Web 2.0, teachers should become familiar with the technology they want to implement in their classroom.  They state “It is always a good idea to practice with the new technologies before adopting them for learning or teaching in the classroom.”  For me, this is one of the most important things an educator can do beginning the journey and becoming a 21st century teacher.  This year I implemented a few new technologies in my classroom.  The one that changed the way I teach is Seesaw.  Seesaw is a student driven digital portfolio that allows students to share their work with parents and families.  I had dabbled with it a bit last school year and saw it’s potential for 21st century learners, however I wasn’t ready to start using it with my students.  Over the summer I enrolled in the Seesaw Ambassador program and completed training to learn the program on my own.  It was so worth it!  Before the students begin to add to their portfolio Seesaw provides step by step mini-lessons on the features in a “Seesaw Student Challenge.”   Embedded in the challenge are lessons on digital citizenship.  For my young learners we focus on the importance of what is and is not safe to post online.  We also look at how to appropriately comment on another students work.  What I would like to do that I did not this year is create a classroom blog.  On pages 364-366 of Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level: Issues and Challenges  the authors discuss the learning opportunities of blogging in the classroom.  I would like to use my class blog to create learning communities that students can connect with through “Seesaw Connected Blogs.”  Through this feature they can collaborate with students in other schools, and perhaps this can be one way to improve my PBL next year.

A student’s post in Seesaw.

The Networked Learner

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Second graders listening to the owner of Benjamin Franklin Plumbing.

My second grade students are currently working on a PBL in which they are to create a business that they think would thrive and add value to our community.  They have been working as teams to brainstorm, create a name, slogan, logo, and write a plan to pitch to potential investors on our Market Day.  Students have done fishbowl activities in which they pitch their plan to a small group of “sharks” consisting of students and teachers.  They received constructive feedback about what we liked about their business as well as what we think they could do to improve their business and any concerns we had about them being successful. As we enter the final phase of their PBL where students are creating a model of their business, good, or service, we took a break to hear a presentation from a local business owner about what it is like to own and operate a business in our community.   Like any good teacher I prepped my students by showing them the business website for Benjamin Franklin Plumbing. We had a great discussion about their location, slogan, what we thought it would be like to be an employee/ employer and then they wrote a list of (at least 2) questions to ask the owner.  We. Were. Ready.

Then the owner walked in.  She’s a girl?  My students were surprised. I told Michelle, the co-owner of Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, that my students were surprised to see her and she so fabulously said to them, “Why? Can’t a girl own a business?”  What happened in the next 45 minutes is what teacher’s dreams are made of; they were on the edge of their seats, fully engaged and inspired listening to Michelle talk.  They asked their questions and more and eagerly wrote the answers down.  But when Michelle left and they were back with their teams sharing what they learned with each other Claire came up to me and said “Mrs. Cridland, I thought you were just teaching us all this stuff for our project.  I didn’t really think that girls can have a business.”  After I choked back my tears I asked her what she thought now and her response has made my year, “I think girls can do anything.”

As I watched Entrepreneurial Learner by John Seely Brown, I was reminded of Claire when Seely Brown said that students build conceptual lenses through play.  That play gives them permission to fail, fail, fail until they get it right. That moment when they get it right is their epiphany and that when a student has an epiphany it will stay with them for the rest of their life.  Now Claire’s epiphany happened not directly through play but because she was able to tie together what she had been creating for her business (C & C’s for Dollies) with what she had learned listening to Michelle speak to the class.  It was a moment for her wrapped in a brilliant message, that she will undoubtedly take with her moving forward, that nothing is impossible.

I chose to read Chapter 2; Peer-Supported Learning from Teaching in the Connected Learning Classroom and felt inspired by the story Wanna See the Movie?  In the story the teacher reflects on work she has done on urban literacy issues as part of the National Writing Project.  Her school, like so many, has mandated weekly assessments, data tracking, and a scripted literacy curriculum. One aspect of the project required the teacher to loop with her students through their next year of schooling and it was during the second year where she decided she wanted to learn what it would be like to be a first grade student in her class and to see how literacy might fit into their ordinary school lives. So, she added the job “videographer” to her classroom job chart and the students were off and running collecting short documentaries throughout each school day.  Together the class would watch and reflect on each documentary and it became an integral part of their day.  If we want to see how the role of a learner is changing with the context of connected learning then this is a perfect example.  Traditionally, students are receivers of information and the teacher is there to transfer knowledge to students.  In this context of learning we (teachers) have very tight control on student voice and choice.  Now, students and teacher learn together.  By putting a camera in students hands and allowing them to choose what they feel is important and giving them an opportunity to be the narrator of their lives in school.  They aren’t sitting in their seats completing worksheet after worksheet.  Students are making things, tinkering with their learning.  This avenue of connected learning allows students to demonstrate their learning in a way that has never happened in a traditional learning classroom.  What intrigues me the most as a teacher is what happens next.  Sitting with students and analyzing the video, connecting with peers.  I think that would be so powerful for them but also as a teacher to learn what their day is like from their perspective and how students are making decisions about their learning by looking at when and what they record.  Clearly, there may be challenges along the way such as ensuring that students are videoing and narrating appropriate content but with the challenges would come opportunities for learning to occur.  As teachers we are used to having the privilege of being the decision maker for what and when activities occur and I think for this to be successful we must be comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling of allowing students to have that privilege as well.