WIKI REFLECTION
Wiki-spaces Classroom is a social writing platform for
education that is an extension of the traditional classroom environment. Wiki
benefits teachers and students with the ability of working in collaboration for
the collection of content to achieve a particular learning outcome. Wikis are
open to all members that have permission and can be accessed on multiple
technologies, including, browsers, tablets and phones. Technical issues can
also be facilitated via Wiki as collaborative help and support is achievable.
There are multiple ways in which Wikis can be used. For example, wikis are a
live document that can be edited and evolved by multiple authors, however
editing issues have been identified. Educators could have students set their
own Wikis up and have teacher access, and allow each student to edit their own
Wikis. Even though Wiki can be used in this way, unfortunately it removes a
major part of what Wiki is all about, which is the collaboration of content and
adding individuals own ideas and perspectives. Using Wiki classroom in its
traditional manner, i.e. having the teacher setup as the organiser and the
students as members, builds intellectual trust as wiki relies on the assumption
that all authors have good intentions.
Wiki classroom is a safe Social network platform based on
set tasks that can be accessed only by set permissions allowing constant open
access for both teacher and student. Students have the flexibility to complete
work activities at their own pace, while teachers have the ability to provide
formative assessment while monitoring participation and engagement. The teacher
can also adjust tasks to cater for diversity and equity as some students may
find work to easy, or to difficult, allowing the teacher to provide support, or
challenging learning goals.
The way I would use Wiki classroom is as follows. One of my
disciplinary areas is Industrial, Technology and Design (Manual arts). I would
allocate all students with a project that has been manufactured i.e. Toolbox.
Once the students have seen the project, my task for them is to create a
manufacturing plan of that project. While the teacher can provide documents and
resources embedded into Wiki, this only provides for lower order thinking as
outlined in blooms, and the substitution level of the SAMR model. Moving to the
next level of the SAMR model, Augmentation, is providing students with content
and having the ability for students to comment on that content, still at the
lower order thinking level. At the modification level of the SAMR model, Wiki
can be used to display content, provide step by step instructions, and have
students communicate collaboratively while providing transformation of how this
unit has previously been delivered without the use of ICT. To maximise Wikis
potential for the facilitation of higher order thinking for my proposed unit of
work is to firstly allocate students with one class project. The set task is
for the class to collaboratively work through specific headings of how to
produce the project i.e. Safety, tools to be used, cutting out processes, and
assembly processes. The wiki would provide areas to input content under each
heading. Each student would need to contribute their own ideas and provide
evidence of how, what and why to provide a justification on choosing their synthesised
content from research. Once all students have contributed to the Wiki under all
headings, the final complete plan can be created. This process falls under the
Redefinition heading as outlined in the SAMR model as the delivery of this unit
has completely transformed from traditional methods previously used. As Blooms
describes, that processes involving, synthesis, analysis and evaluation are
higher order thinking skills that students had to facilitate to be able to
justify the contribution of content into the classroom Wiki.
Links to how I improved my technical knowledge of Wiki
Classrooms.
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