I have spent the last 6 weeks off and on using it. They have had to post two lots of writing on the wiki which involves editing a main page and linking to a new page. I only have the one log in and password that all the students use and sometimes we have 20 kids editing the same page at once which surprisingly has not caused too many problems (although someone did manage to wipe our home page!!).

The linking is the tricky part — they accidently linked backed to another page but we are getting there. I also asked them to copy and paste a page they had written on to our class blog which is a really good skill to teach.

I am now starting to see the transfer of these skills. One of my students has written their own wikipedia page at home!

P.S. Thanks Louise for that excellent advice to lock the home page! If only I had known this before!

Walk them through little parts and give little tasks to start.

One other suggestion: Lock pages. Go to manage space/List pages/Choose your page and lock it. That stops them from changing the home page.

I do that. Sometimes I forget and then are remonded when a page is wiped out or messed with it. Easy to fix, but easier to prevent.

Also, I put together an overview of wikis for a presentation I gave this past February here: http://njascd-wikis.wikispaces.com – some intro and how-to stuff on there, as well as links to examples of what I call “Tier 1″ and “Tier 2″ wikis.

I was unsuccessful in getting professionals to act as guides (e.g. anthropologists,) and am keen to get professional feedback on how I can improve my design and presentation of my project. Very few girls looked at the guidelines provided – I think because navigation was to complex.

Regards,
Carolynn B

I started using a wiki with my history class. Instructions were, in pairs, they had to research a topic relating to the local municiapality. They would have to conduct an interview and or send emails to get information as well as use the internet and other sources. They began by putting their questions on their page, then typing in answers as found. Other students could put comments on page of other references they had found. The final product I will be assessing is at least one paragraph on topic, including hyperlinks or referencing, images or diagrams with appropriate sourcing and a quiz created by the students. I included the wiki rubric on the first page as well so they knew how they were being assessed.

Some kids have done well, others not even got permission yet to be on the wiki.

http://sorelltas.wikispaces.com

@indigo196 digital natives is just one of those terms that it’s really easy to throw around without truly thinking of what’s behind it. Labeling generations is tough at any time, and grouping that with a skill set so controversial as technology use just isn’t logical.

@durff you provided such great food for thought that day on twitter about the ustream session – great stuff! I’m so happy I was able to stop in and learn from that forum – thanks for letting us all know about it.

@Aaron – yet again, thanks for taking the time to talk to me, companies like Mzinga are really showing educators what skills our students will need to thrive in business!

@Corrie – I love this! “In order for students to see these tools as more than playthings, they need to see that use modeled. Getting teachers up to speed on this new world is crucial, but just as important is to find those students who are already going more than a layer down, incent them to go even deeper, and then reward the heck out of that behavior.” So many students’ great work is often overlooked by labeling an entire generation – it IS very important to give incentives to those who go above and beyond and model the skills we’d like to see in all of our students. As for modeling by educators, that’s key – how will students know how to use these tools productively if they’re the only ones using them? Of course, in order to model, teachers would need access……….

@edtechworkshop – I agree completely, the network of educators is amazing and I wouldn’t give mine up for anything! Stepping outside that to interact with other professionals from around the world is very interesting, though, and the “no borders” atmosphere is something that is unique to the online environment.

@Marie – very true about teachers not networking, but it’s true about all professions. Time and location are always issues, which is what is so neat about the online environment. I don’t network at school because I never have time to leave my classroom!

@Sue – loved your post and did read Darren’s post – looks like we’re all thinking the same thing!

@JohnLarkin – you’re a constant inspiration, thanks for all the learning you’ve shared with me – as for working too hard, blogging isn’t work for me – it’s one of my favorite things to do