{"id":1842,"date":"2011-10-02T16:39:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T16:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/?p=1842"},"modified":"2017-12-27T14:34:25","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T14:34:25","slug":"studywikis-hard-earned-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/studywikis-hard-earned-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"StudyWikis: Hard-Earned Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of several posts on my old blog, From the Trenches, about the craft of teaching.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Okay, I admit: I rushed into the Wiki business perhaps a little late for the rush of \u2013pedia followers and a little early for my technical skills. Nevertheless, techno-literacy aside, I\u2019ve learned a few things about my classroom forays into Wiki-work, and I thought I would post them here for the unwary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why Wiki?<\/b><\/h4>\n

To me, that question was easy. \u00a0After moving most of my worksheets and quizzes to online discussion forums in the late 1990s, I recognized that the last decade of teaching has been wholly different from anything before it. Critical class minutes of interactions with students\u2014class discussions, working with special needs students, peer reviews, group collaboration, one-on-one intervention and tutorial, grade reviews, etc.\u2014could now be fit into 57 minute class periods that were free of the infernal \u201cquiet work.\u201d \u00a0Why, I asked myself, were we working quietly alone when we had so little time together? Online forums cleared my teaching space for . . . teaching.<\/span><\/p>\n

So as 2.0 tech began to sweep the web, I upgraded (I now work on Microsoft\u2019s Sharepoint ASP programming) and started exploring other ways to enhance\u2014not replace\u2014my practice. Wikis were an obvious choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

In essence, I reasoned, I could make study collaborative while students were apart. \u00a0I could compel the best of group work (peer teaching\/mentoring, editorial review, checks for understanding, and enhanced discovery\/solution-making) to happen outside of the classroom, as well. \u00a0What\u2019s more it would free the classroom space for even more of the interactions which might only be accomplished when we were together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wiki What?<\/b><\/h4>\n

For myself, a teacher of composition and literature, content is relatively unobtrusive in contrast to skills instruction. \u00a0Nevertheless, why couldn\u2019t students collaborate to build a Study Notes Wiki for my classroom? They could add our notes and discussions on novels, on writing techniques, etc. If a student missed class, they could always find what we had done on our wiki. More, once one semester had compiled notes, later semesters might add and enhance\u2014I might accomplish far more in my curriculum when students were building a massive \u201ccheat sheet\u201d library of my classroom. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is quite a different pedagogy from the infamous days when teachers would root out rogue notebooks sold on student black markets of \u201cAP World History\u201d or \u201cAdvanced Biology.\u201d Rather than attempt to quash information about our classrooms, we do better to expose it all, for parents, students, and the broader community. After all, if my tests were merely factual recall, didn\u2019t I want the students to know what they had to learn? If they were process or skills tests, then the factual background hurt nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so I began three key StudyWiki projects at first, with more planned:<\/span><\/p>\n