Wiki Experiments

I’ve done it!  I’ve set up a wiki project with my class.  I’ve got it up and running, finally after a fair while thinking and planning.  Now I’m looking  forward to seeing  how it will eventually shape and form and what will come of it.

Class profile:

It’s a late night intensive class. That means it runs on Thursdays from 6.45 to 9.30.  They are and advanced exam class between the ages of 15 and 18.  It is a small class, only 7 students.  Generally speaking they come from supportive backgrounds.  They are studying at either at school, for the  bachillerato (pre-university qualification), or at university itself.  They already have FCE, which is the “standard”.   They are busy, really busy students.  And, they are tired.   Often they are facing more “important exams” for university entrance and so on, their schedules are completely full  and they have been studying English for years now.  They are conscious of time and any thing that wastes it. They have certain expectations of class and they are focused on results.  These are the students whose internet habits I described in a previous post “students and blogs.”

With this in mind, and having never set up a full wiki project before I wanted to see what I could do to make it relevant for the students and the class. itself.  To structure it a little but also to give them some personal space on the wiki.

I talked them through it first and we did the online habits questionnaire  a few weeks back.  I actually introduced the wiki itself before but last night was the first time we started to actually use it.

A few weeks ago I started off with a PB wiki but I found  I had some difficulties so I switched to a wetpaint wiki.  For some reason I thought the editing seemed easier to do.  I had some flickers of regret though as the page was messy and when I introduced it to the class on the whiteboard there were a couple of flash adverts on it, which turned the classroom into a kind of disco! The adverts are annoying, last nights was for a “bachelor website”.   Still they are used to this kind of thing and so maybe it’s no big deal.  It seems the ads have calmed down since then and the more we write on it the more the ads become more specific.

As the class went on and they got passwords and uploaded videos (they had worked on film reviews and so I encouraged them to upload trailers) they got more involved.  Soon they were uploading profile pictures from FB and making “friends” with each other (the site has a sort of networking section, which took them no time at all to find and was a real hit).  Their home work is to “comment” on two or more of the film reviews.  Later on in the week I’ll go into it and comment myself.  I think it’s really important to encourage comment making at the beginning to make the site more dynamic and interactive.

At the moment it’s pretty rudimentary and there’ not a lot there but I am waiting to see what we as a class  can make of it, how it will change and if it will meet longer term goals.

This is it here. Any ideas  to help it along would be much appreciated.

Useful links for wikis and EFL stuff

I found this slideshare which is relevant to EFL teachers and also anyone doing the EDES course (there’s a bit of heuristic  stuff in there!!)  There’s a tape script of the actual presentation here.

And…very importantly,  I managed to embed a slideshare into my blog.  A first!

My favourite blogger, Nik Peachy made this post with some very useful ideas on how to use wikis in and EFL  class.

And the site -wikis in EFL- has some comparisons of different wiki sites. to use.  I don’t think it’s been added to for a while but it still has some useful info.

Wikis and competition

I don’t think collaborative learning, and collaborative learning on  wiki would really work in a highly competitive school environment.  The reason I think this is that I came across two very interesting studies which I think raised some very interesting points:

The first was a study on the use of a relatively unstructured wiki project in a London secondary school. (2009)

It is interesting because the author, Lindsay Grant, points to the failure of the  project to fulfill the expectations of the teachers.  The students were given a huge amount of freedom to construct a  wiki.  However problems followed and she highlights many problems that can occur at the this level.

• Schools themselves are by nature (exam result focused) very competitive places, wikis tend collaborative activities tend to falter with too much competition around.
• Students were pared (one pair per page) and the hope was that they would interact with other students pages, eventually creating a collective community.  This did not happen.  The students kept to their pairs and resented any input from other students on their page (and visa versa did not want to “interfere” with other student pages.)   The task therefore remained essentially a  pair-work task. (Issues with           ownership of work).

The paper was in fact called “I don’t care do your own page” taken from a comment one of the students had written,  reacting to comments made on their page by a  student from a different group.

A second study based in Hong Kong is especially interesting to people in the EFL world.  It was a study by Coniam and Lee Wai Kit (2008) of,  as the title says,   Incorporating wikis into the teaching of English writing (in an EFL classroom)

• It was hoped that students would peer correct grammar errors and there learn constructively.  Students however felt that their level of English was not good enough for this task and saw it as the “teacher’s job”
• Not all students contributed evenly to the wiki, there was a varied response.  This sometimes caused resentment.

On a positive note it was concluded that:

• ” A number of weak, and shy, students had actually contributed to the wiki, more so than they usually tended to do on class projects. For these students who tended not to be active participators in class, the wiki provided a platform to facilitate their English learning after class”

I would definitely use a wiki in my classroom, I am in the middle of setting one up.  I see a lot of potential in them.  But I think some of the points above are worth thinking about beforehand.

Wikis and collaborative editing.

I’ve just completed a training module for the UOC. The task we were assigned was that in groups of 4 we had to write a text collaboratively using a wiki.   Our text was  a piece about abortion and we had to present four different points of view.  We were given specific roles and guidelines.  For example there had to be a secretary, two editors and so on.  The editors had to write an introduction and a conclusion, and we each had to write 100 words on one point of view.   We were encouraged to “edit” the document collectively.  I know personally, or will be  in the future working alongside the other participants.

I noticed though that we did not “freely” edit the document.  We did not make changes to any text that was written by another.  If someone did want to make changes they/ I sent a message first to check that it was OK.   Those changes usually related to the organisation of the paragraphs and not the content.   Even spelling mistakes people wrote to each other about first.  And always people said -” Is this OK?  If you want to change it back, please change it back.”  There was a certain etiquette we became involved in.

People freely edit Wikipedia because you do not know the person who has written the text.  The issue of editing becomes more complex when you have a relationship with somebody.  We are teachers, EFL teachers, we work in communication and this is how we naturally approached the task and organised ourselves.

Editing means changing things.   This  has implicit criticism.   It says that you have a better way of doing something, which  at the same time means that you think the other person is wrong or falls short.  I think there is a natural resistance to editing because people are trying to be polite, (being polite – in my opinion-  never a bad thing.)

It seems reasonable for the teacher to consider that students will not freely edit each others work.  If this is  a necessary part of the task  and if the teacher encourages this then maybe they should help the students in this “new terrain” by thinking of  editing guidelines  and / or examples, that will help the students to avoid conflict.

After all, we want to give new opportunities to our students, not present them with  confusing and unnerving experiences.

Disaster strikes..

A technology grumble.

All this technology is great when it works but I have had a mini disaster which is putting me behind. Just when I was really pleased with myself for getting to grips with those funky little RSS feeds I start having problems with my computer (not that the RSS feeds and my computer disaster are connected!).  I have a little Asus eeepc H which is a cute little thing and I can take it anywhere and it has been great for the last year and a half.  No problems.  Thursday I start having problems…the screen keeps freezing. Grrr.  It’s unworkable.  I’ve done a virus scan, a spyware scan and a system restore.  No luck.  The CPU values are all over the place.   Yep technology is great when it works, when it doesn’t, it can drive you crazy. (Well, it drives me crazy!  I should practice some zen breathing).  Luckily I have a back up computer but I want my mobility back.  I think I will need to take it to the computer hospital and get it checked over.  The time I had pegged for looking over the wiki material has been eaten up by me trying to find out what’s going on.     Grrr.  Grumble over.

RSS feeds ..Hurray!

I have managed to get to grips with RSS feeds..already it is helping me to keep up to date with everything.

I don’t think I am alone in suffering from online “space” overload.  I have account names and passwords flowing everywhere.  I have to keep track of, amongst other things:

• 4 email accounts (not including the VLE ones)
• This blog to contribute to.
• A lot of blogs/wikis to keep up with.
• 3 wikis to contribute to.
• 2 VLEs
• Facebook.

I only set up the RSS feeds  a couple of days ago but already it is helping to keep tabs on any changes and help me to not feel  so snowed under with  online spaces.  Now we have a Tweet page on our emerging technologies wiki front page  I may take the plunge and the extra breathing space RSS has given me and join Twitter.

More good blogs……

I’ve been playing with Wordle…

I’ve got another recommendation for any EFL teachers  with a blog written  by a couple of friends who live here in Spain.  They have a blog called Digital Play which gives recommendations, advice and lesson plans on using online games for language learning.

Digital Play

Being very connected they have a Facebook group too…This is how they describe their blog:

Digital Play is a new blog for teachers of English interested in using computer games and other digital toys with learners. Find out more here:http://digitalplay.info/blog/

There are  a lot of teachers now blogging and sharing experiences, ideas, links and more..here’s just a few I’ve come across TEFL teacher,  Ken Wilson’s blog (a popular one for commentary  on teaching..), six things a really useful look at ideas for the classroom, and blog efl.

What are emerging technologies?

There’s a short video I found on The Guardian which talks about technology in 2009.  They mention a lot of the technology we are talking about.  One of the contributors is Aleks Krotoski who presents BBC’s The Virtual Revolution.  It’s only 6 minutes but gives a good round up of new emerging technologies.  It mentions Twitter.  I was resisting it but  I may  have to join up, just to see what it’s all about..

2009- The year in technology

Blogging’s not dead..

All this talk of abandoned blogs and so on got me thinking.  Not all is dead in blog land and not all blogs lead to the bin.  Let me introduce a friend’s blog..nothing to do with technology or education but nature.  My friend started this as  a really  simple blog a few years ago now and it has developed over time to a full on website..There is hope in blog land..

Iberia nature

Students and blogs

Rather than make sweeping generalisations about the internet habits of my students I decided to actually ask them.  I made a questionnaire about their online activities-what do they do?  where do they go?  do they participate? The profile of these students are- Spanish, upper teens, high level of English.  Responses were more or less uniform among them.

As I suspected, the number one internet site was Facebook (followed by Facebook, Facebook and Facebook).  Farmville, a game on Facebook got a big thumbs up.  In general I found-

• Average time on the net- 3 hours per day.
• Most popular site Facebook, surprise, surprise.
• A lot of IM
• Youtube
• Their school home page
• Some students look at Wikipedia periodically although schools advise against it.
• No one shopped online.
• None of them used Twitter.
• Some of them had photologs.
• Only one girl had blogged, a week long creative writing project at school designed specifically to give her experience of blogging.
• No one participated in any online forums.
• Only one girl knew what a wiki was, although it was difficult for her to explain the difference between a blog and a wiki.
• Some of them use Skype to keep in touch with family outside of Spain.
• Some of them streamed football matches/TV
• All of them had emails although some didn’t use them often as they prefered to keep in touch by, guess what, Facebook!

Students are different all over the world but for me this fits with city centre students using the net more for socialising.

They are an exam class.  I have decided to start a wiki with them.  I explained what a wiki was and why we would use it and what we were going to do with it.  They seemed ok with that.  We started it last night.  We’ll see how it goes.

Blogs..

My blog recommendation:

There’s one blog that I like, it is a guy called Nik Peachey.  He has a blog specifically for ELT and it has lots of tips and links to other useful sites.

Nik’s Learning Page

He also has a book: Web 2.0 tools for teachers.

This is an e book and is free to download.

By the way, I have just encountered my first techno problem here.  I have used blogspot before and could upload images just fine and so I wanted to put in a nice screen shot here to add a bit of visuals…no way.  I have just spent over an hour trying to work it out but no luck..I will have to leave it now incase I hyper ventilate and throw my computer out of the window.

Blogs in class:

I’m looking at blogs specifically for young learners and ELT.

For young  learners, and here I mean teenagers,  I think to sustain a blog long term (as writing, reading practice or an e portfolio) is quite difficult without any imput from the teacher.  I have doubts about the blog growing organically or that the other students, without prompting, would comment and reply to each others posts.  Bottle half empty.  In my own  internet life, my contributions to the web have been,  until now, a few half  sentences of status updates on Facebook and some uploaded photos.  I am assuming that my students are in a pretty similar boat – but I could always check by asking them first!!

Teacher’s TV blogs in class

I liked the activity on the teacher’s tv.  I thought it was a really well exercised project, and it was well thought out.  Very nice wrap up activity with the link up to another school.  I thought that was great. This is my opinion (so far!) of teaching with blogs – I think that they would work well if  they were part of some project and I think that far from being free flowing, the teacher would have to plan carefully and have quite a large input into the project to keep it running smoothly.  I notice that the kids in the project had a ready made audience, other kids in their own school and the school in Stoke on Trent, so there was an audience and comments were made to their posts.  Also I noticed that they had a great computer lab and there was widespread access to computers, not something that all schools have.  For me the main points for teaching with blogs are

• Finding ways to sustain interest
• Finding ways to make the blog(s) relevant to my students
• Making sure that posts are commented on (otherwise motivation could evaporate)
• Working out how much class time/ home time could/would  be spent on the blog and the logistics of access to the net.
• Security issues, access to inappropriate content and monitoring posts.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of the other videos for ideas…