My thoughts on Wikis and Blogs in schools.

After creating a wiki, which is still under construction, I can see enormous benefits of these in classrooms. I believe this medium can be utilised by many year levels including younger school children to not only learn through the use of advanced technology but also share and teach others what they have learned.

As children grow and become more saturated with so many kinds of technology the question we should ask ourselves is why not use it to their advantage? By having students, either as a class or in smaller groups formulate ideas for wikis through class oriented projects they will gain a range of learning experiences that can be translated again and again across many disciplines. As suggested by Kearsley and Schneiderman in their article "Engagement Theory" (1998) using the theory, "relate, create, donate" (1998) students who are engaged in technology and able to use it with a real world issue will benefit more than students who are disengaged and see no relevance to the subject matter in their day to day lives.

The ideas for wikis are quite simply endless and can be stretched across all the KLAs and disciplines which as Heath explains in his article about Mode 2 knowledge is a much more effective tool for teaching than its predecessor. (Heath G. 2001) For example, students can create wikis about good budgeting. This would relate well to Maths as well as SOSE and HPE. Maths provides the tools to understand values, SOSE provides the opportunity to see how budgets can be used throughout society i.e. in government and HPE can also benefit from budgets because a budget may not simply include money but also healthy eating and exercise strategies. By enabling the students to be actively involved in the creation and implementation of wikis for classroom activities learning can go from being simply a staid teacher-centric experience where students are simply fed the information from the teacher, to a much more student-centric approach. Students can in fact become the teachers through wikis.

The use of a blog in classes can be of great assistance to not just a teacher but the students themselves. Blogs can be created for so many differing situations, charting a learner's progress to maintaining lines of communication and gauging what students want to learn. A blog can also be a great way to enable students to journal creative thinking. Perhaps using blogs to get students to create a story over the course of a term. At the end students can reflect on what they have learned about different aspects of writing, punctuation and how a story is constructed.

As Learning Managers, I think we have an obligation to create exciting, engaging and meaningful learning experiences that students can take with them and employ in their lives. Technology can take students' learning in so many directions, it is up to us as Learning Managers to provide the opportunities and frameworks that will enable this to happen.


References:

Heath G Teacher Education and the New Knowledge Environment 2001

Kearsley G and Schneiderman B. Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning 1998