A class Wiki: a do it yourself learning management system

Wikis have come a long way and now some big players are providing free wiki sites they are becoming an attractive option for most teachers to consider. The video below is a getting started guide to using Google Sites which is the system I like. But there are many more like WetPait, WikiSpaces and EduBlogs.

Most teachers seem to be introduced to technologies like this by first looking at what functions the sofware perform, then they start to consider how it might be useful in their class. In an ideal world they would probably do it differently. First consider teaching purposes, then ponder all the way of helping achieve these, narrow the options down to maybe some software, then, do an analysis of the software and select the most suitable. I think in reality people are not so cold bloodedly logical, and jump back and forth from see an idea in a tool, thinking about its classroom use, then going back to look at the tool. It is a mishmash of seeing an opportunity, checking out its learning potential, wrestling with practical issues, personal skills development, trying it out with students, taliking about it with colleagues. Practical learning is working at several levels simultaneously.

So, this video will tell you a bit about functions that Sites offers, and it shows some of the quite practical steps to getting it running in your class. Because this is the thinking processes that I suspect you will be going through when considering whether to use a tool like a wiki.





Teachers who quickly find a use of a wiki are interested in student publishing, creating a real audience for writing, collaboration and student responsibility and creativity.

My experience in workshops is that teachers can effectively manage their Sites wiki after about an hour of exploration. This is a testamnent to the first main feature of a wiki - simplicity.
The second feature is colaborative editing, so a group can manage a site, and the third is access to version of the site, giving one the capacity to recover from mistakes or vandalism. Together, the three features make it a very good tool for a class web site with student involvement.

An important aspect of wikis like the Google one is that even though they are fairly simple to manage, they have some powerful features. An example is the ability to subscribe to a site or a page. Once this is done the subscriber receives an email each time the site or page is altered, which makes it easy to keep up to date with a page or site you are sharing respobsibility for.

The best way to find out if software like this is useful to you is to give it a go. It's free.

Google Sites: a wiki with good sibling relations

I have been presenting a group of workshops recently showcasing a number of Web 2.0 applications and have used Google Sites as the starting point. From the speed with which teachers were able to set up a site and make it look presentable and funcitonal it is like most wikis, very easy to use. As I explored Sites more I found that it has some very useful features. One is that once you have a Google account - using any email as your identity, you can creat as many sites as you like. Different sites can have different acces right for a class of student to view, or edit, or open to the world. These can all be linked to a home site, so on the menu to the right, I was the sole editor of most of the pages listed, but Open Access is actually another site that could be edited by the workshop participants.

Another feature is a result of having some powerful siblings in the Google family, most of which integrate with Sites very well. You can view Calendars, Picasa Web Album slide shows, Google docs, and in the case of Forms, complete a suvey.

Many of the teachers immediately began setting up one or more sites for class use. The immediacy of wikis is very appealing to teachers, and the Forms from Google docs is an added bonus. This feature make creating a form, or survey a 15 minute task if you know what you want to ask and the resulting survey can be viewed in Sites, or emailed to the participants. The image of a survey to the right is how the survey appears when inserted into a Sites page.

A nice little feature is that when you go to the Insert menu in Sites and select a document to insert, you are taken to the list of files from you Google docs home page: Mr Google having taken the liberty of opening up the sibling site in the family. A single login to a Google account makes all of this very accessible and easy to use.

But really, most of these or similar features can be found in WetPaint or WikiSpaces and other wikis. The big news is that web publishing for students and teachers is available right now. What teachers really like and deserve is control of these applications. Teaching is an individual and often spontaneous art and teachers should not have to go through a middle-person to access these powerful learning tools.

If you would like to browse a site you can do so HERE.

I'm a teacher, why blog!

A blog is a journal that is published online. But very few people keep a journal, and even fewer publish it. So what's the attraction of a blog? Well, it is not for everyone. However, teachers have one or more captive audiences with which they are in constant communication. Secondly, blogs are immediately available to anyone with an internet connection. Thirdly, they allow comments by readers. So, if teachers want to get information to their students in a form that is always available (at home) and which students can respond to, and maybe parent can have access to as well, then a blog might be useful. Add to that the fact that blogs gererally look good, can include images and video, are searchable, then maybe they are a useful communication tool.

What about students, I hear you say. Well, blogs can be restricted to a limited audience, and if students have a need to communicate with more than just their teacher, they can be very useful. They are simple to structure: are always linear, and are a long term record. They can be a major journal of learning and observations. They can be open to parents and family, so can provided an instant and appreciative audience. That is a key attribute of blogs for students. They can provide a forum and an audience for student writing and images.

Students and teachers can have multiple blogs that are written for different audiences as the need arises.