Moving forward to embrace it!

I found an article while I was looking for a journal article that outlined the different ways to use a wiki. Last week, I didn’t like wikis, but after reading this article I have discovered a new respect for them as tools for building a learning community.

I had always thought of wikis as a tools best used for building a resource bank. That was the first way I was introduced to them and after a few years of use, that was the only way I could see this tool. The article I found listed five purposes for wikis and two of these concepts sparked ideas for further potential. Presenation wikis were defined as a way to share a draft of a document; this format would provide an inwardly focused toward the construction of an individual project. I can see this form being a great way for students to offer peer review of essays. Students seem to wait until the end of the assignment period to write their essays and then once you have a rough draft, they don’t make half the changes I suggest. I think it may feel too much like starting over when I give them feedback on what they may need to change.

If they were part of a collaborative process with other students making suggestions on their draft documents, I think they would be more likely to make changes. By getting feedback from other students in real-time as they write, it would build community in the classroom without having to carve out the extra time from class hours. We have so much material to cover while in class that it often feels that we can’t really take the time for students to read and then comment on one another’s papers. The other wiki format that they mentioned also allowed students to interact in different way to share ideas for problem solving.

In essence, what this pointed out to me was that even though we may have ideas about what tools can do within the classroom, there are always ways that the tools can be re-interpreted to fit a new purpose. I think that it is these pre-conceived ideas of the tools are, how they can be used, and the ways we can use them in the classroom are the same notions that affect the adoption of the new technologies themselves. What I am realizing is that no teaching form can be stagnant. No teacher can grow without changing to meet the adapting needs of students and that includes constantly looking for new tools and different tools to do a better job. If I had a magic wand, I would change the idea that any one school of thought had it “right” when it came to education and technology. By embracing new technology, we are just as likely to get stuck in our ideas of what effective teaching might be as those who are still photocopying worksheets. Both ideas have valid points, but neither can remain the same indefinitely.

With all these tools available, what are the implications for changing the way we work, teach and learn? What is preventing us from such changes? If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change and why?