Saturday, April 3, 2010
Using Wiki's for Professional Development
I have yet to decide if I am a true fan of Wiki's. I enjoy that multiple people can add to them, but I do not like that only one person can work with them at a time. This can be frustrating for someone that has a busy schedule and needs to plan out their work time. I can see how a blog would be nice in comparison as long as you know ahead of time who the blog belongs to and if they have professional credentials, in addition to multiple people being able to use it at once. However, using a wiki could be great for getting ideas. I always look for new ideas to present the same materials, as many of my students need that. Sometimes the first three ways do not work but that fourth way you finally see a spark. I also see them as a positive way to find more age appropriate materials. Often times the skills of some of my students are low but they still have high school interests so talking to other educators about how to tie these two together would be great. Even as I looked through many different wiki's I noticed that they all were focused on age or grade appropriate materials. I believe if I started following some of these and adding to them I would begin to see more relevant materials for some of my classes. Even as I looked through wiki's titled Consumer Math the skills being addressed would be to high for my students. I believe that since this is new, as I dig in deeper, relevant materials for my specific uses will come out.
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I agree with you! I like the flexibility of a wiki in allowing for input from many different sources- which is great and gives many different viewpoints. It is, however, hindered by the fact that only one person can edit at a time. I also don't necessarily like the idea that one student could delete/alter another student's work before I have had a chance to read it- or give them credit for contributing. I could see using a wiki more as a class resource for posting information, study for the AP exam, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe one person editing can be an issue, but I haven't found any that allow simultaneous editing. I don't think the technology can support that. What generally happens is that they are used for more long term projects, so you don't have more than one person editing a page at once, OR people break the wiki down into more pages so that each major section is a different page and you can have each of those edited at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you are going to have to start your own wiki of resources appriopraite for your level. I bet you could get other teachers to contribute to that.
You can go back and determine if something has been deleted (Page History), but it is a little clunky. We might also want to think about it as a way for one person to create a type of "portfolio" or large project where they really are the main person adding to the site.