Thing 7 - Strech (Challenge)

Since I am such a fan of both the series of books and the movie, I decided to look up Twilight on Wikipedia. I couldn't find the book, so I then searched the author, Stephanie Meyer. I quite honestly don't use Wikipedia a lot, because it is a wiki, others can alter its contents. Some of the content seemed very irrelevant and also almost like a gossip page. The discussion and the history were swamped with comments and changes. All in all, it's O.K. reading, but if I were writing a report, Wikipedia would not be the first place I would turn. It is probably different with other subjects, maybe more history related. With a topic that would be considered pop culture, I think you will get more opinions than facts.

Thing 8

I played around in the sandbox and created my page. I have also enjoyed looking at the "Burning Questions" Sections. I really enjoy that the "Burning Questions" portion was not specifically defined. For the people who have created their wiki page, we have really come up with a variety of "Burning Questions." Some are probably unanswerable questions, and some are related to current events. I just enjoy the variety.

I've mentioned before that I already have created a wikispace for my class. Recently, I have made it more user-friendly. As I am inviting you to check it out, I'm actually wondering if you can even see it without a password. I didn't make it public due to my students using it and my apprehension of if they would handle using the wiki in a mature fashion. Let me know if you can't see it and I'll find out from Caroline how to change that.

Thing 7

I'm finding Wikis to be a little more of a challenge in which to really get interested, but I know why. It's the organization. I am a visual learner. I like pictures and not many of the wikis I visited had them as part of their main mode for navigating the wiki. I was not fond of the organization in the following wikis:

• Dr. Reich's Chemistry Wiki - Everything was well organized, but my interest was not perked because there were no pictures. If you want kids, and me, to use it regularly you have to have pictures.
• FHS Wolves Den - I loved the idea of scribe notes, but it seemed that everything was just a list of stuff. Maybe an outline would be helpful.
• 1001 Flat World Tales Project - I love the whole collaborative idea behind this one, but it was hard to follow the path or the process. Visually I found it busy.

With all of these wikis, I love the ideas of how to use them in the class, but I struggled with the visual appeal and the ease of finding things. Some of the wikis even made it difficult to see the purpose of the wiki.

I've made a classroom wiki for my math class this year (Tipton's Math Wiki), but I will be the first to admit it has not turned out the way I had wanted. I have a few students still using it to study and to play math games, so that is wonderful. The fault falls on me alone for it not being what I want it to be. I guess the next step for my wiki experiences is for me to sit down and make a list of the items I want on my wiki and then put them into categories to have better organization myself. Then, I need to make it visually enticing and maintain the organization.

Things I would love to use in a wiki included:

• scribe of notes from the day's lesson
• video of the day's lesson
• homework question area
• games
• online projects - the issue here is assigning a project for a grade and a student not having a computer or internet.

Back to the age-old issue of benefits and detriments to everything.

Thing 2

I read the following posts. I chose kind of a random, eclectic variety of titles that struck me.

• dy/dan (Mr. Meyer): Why I Don’t Assign Homework
• SP-817 Math Blog: Scribe Posts
• CoolCatTeacher (Vicki Davis): Spies Like Us
• The Fischbowl: Is It Okay To Be A Technology Illiterate Teacher?
• Discourse About Discourse: The Ripe Environment

In general, blogs are much more relaxed even though sometimes their topics are not. The only difference there is in reading them is that it's like reading a conversation. Sure you read conversations in books, but the whole blog is a conversation. When you first start the blog, you don't know with whom you are sharing this conversation. It could be with one person or with 20. People can join the conversation or leave at any time.

Just like a person can join or leave the conversation, what they say in the conversation is just as "up in the air." You have a specific meaning to what you are writing, typing, or saying. Just because you mean it one way, does not mean it is taken that way. Sometimes this can be bad, because this is pretty much the meaning of miscommunication. Sometimes this can also be good. You might have meant what was said one way, but the person reading it takes it a whole new directions. The best way to illustrate this is with music, especially country music. One song that demonstrates this quite well is SheDaisy, "A Night to Remember". On the right click on the CD called "The Whole SheBang." Then click on track #10, "A Night to Remember." It's not what you think it will be. Anyway, contributing to or commenting on another person's blog gives it life. Without that contribution, it really isn't a conversation and it's not Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is all about collaboraion. Web 1.0 is like someone handing you a book to read. Web 2.0 is like someone hading you a whiteboard for you to write.

Writing blogs is different from other types of writing. See my Double Bubble above (Could not figure out how to put it where I wanted it):



One would not think that the last two questions:

• "Is there a "blogging literacy?" How does blogging affect the way we read and write?
• (How) can blogging facilitate learning?" from 23 Things Wiki
  

could go together, but they do. I think there is "blogging literacy." I think there is almost two types of "blogging literacy." There is a formal and an informal way to speak on blogs. In order to properly use blogging to facilitate learning, I think we need to use it formally when in an educational setting. This might be nit-picking, but on my classroom wiki I do not allow "text talk." That is the difference between the formal and informal. I have no problem with students and people using "text talk" in an appropriate setting, but on an educational wiki or on an education blog I don't see it's usefulness. As educators, we reinforce proper grammar and spelling, by spelling things correctly and by counting off when something is spelled incorrectly. The same should be the standard on line. So, if blogging is to facilitate learning, I think it needs to continue with some of the formalities that we require in the classroom.

On a personal note, I can't stand it when students put "IDK" in the answer blank on their paper. Really, I'm not conceited, but I feel as a 7th grade math teacher that I have the brainpower to figure out that if the answer is left blank, you don't know how to do the problem. GRRRRRRRRR!