Discussion tools

Once you have set up a Wiki, you might want to conduct a virtual class discussion with your students about any number of topics.



You might have discussions on readings, or topics you have been covering in class, or perhaps you can facilitate an advising or counseling discussion for the emotional and social well being of your students.



Education research indicates that class discussions can achieve several learning goals in a classroom, whether you do it in person, in groups, or virtually. "Well-designed discussion tasks lead to progressive knowledge-seeking inquiry (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994) or expansive learning (Engeström, 1999) where learners are actively synthesizing new information with prior knowledge and experiences in the process of creating not only new knowledge but also new understanding of the learning process" (Karen Ngeow and Yoon-San Kong). Well designed discussions can increase debate, critical inquiry, and reflection.



There are different kinds of discussion:

* Guided discussion tasks, where the teacher poses a question, and students respond to the question, as well as other students' responses by making comments or asing questions.

* Inquiry-based discussion tasks, where the teacher poses an issue and asks a series of questions that lead students to delve deeply into the topic. Students also have to evaluate information and other students' contributions, and synthesize supporting and opposing ideas relevant to the issue.

* Reflective discussion tasks, where students are required to think about their own roles in learning and discussion. Alternatively, students think about what they are learning and how it relates to their lives and the literature they are studying.

* Exploratory discussion tasks, where students use analytical skills to come up with alternative explanations of real life situations. This requires investigating personal assumptions or opinions and coming up with alternatives.

Depending on the wikisite used in your class, your wiki could have a variety of functions useful in discussions.

You could
- let each student create a page and journal/blog their reflection and then allow others to comment if your wiki allows for adding comments. Google sites has this feature, as does PBWiki, now called PBWorks.

- let students contribute to a threaded discussion, or start a new threaded discussion. Wetpaint has this built in capability.

- let students contribute to a Voicethread, a website that allows chat-style discussion, audio discussion, and video discussion.

There are as many ways to discuss books, topics, people, film, music, and events as there are ideas in your head. Try something and your students will be sure to help you with more ideas.

Ideas for Using a Wiki

I have just returned from a panel discussion on wikis by faculty of the Arts and Sciences Department. I have been using wikis for three years in my classes, but I learned an enormous amount from these professors.

What I saw, was that there are probably at least 4 ways in which to use a wiki:

1. Use a wiki as a course management tool instead of something like Blackboard or Moodle. An excellent example is Miss Baker's Biology Class. This wiki won the the Edublogs award for Single Subject Teacher Wiki.

2. Use a wiki as a single topic collaborative project. A great example is Salks Periodic Table . This is another prize winner. It won the Edublogs award for single topic wiki.

3. Use the wiki as blog, a discussion board, or place where people can collaborate on a creative project. See the English Advertising Class wiki. It was nominated for an Edublogs award.

4. Educational Consultant's Informational Wiki: Clif's Wiki. It is a great collection of resources on education and technology.

Check out these wikis for ideas. They were all nominated for the Edublogs Awards - Best Educational Wiki category.

Happy wiki'ing

How to get started using a Wiki

It could not be easier.

First, why do want the wiki? What is the purpose? What will be the topic?

Second, do you want a public or private wiki? Do you want any one to read what is on there or do you want to restrict membership? Make sure you check your school's policy. If you are going to have personal information or photos of students on the wiki, you should probably go with a private wiki.

Third, you have to plan what you want on your wiki. All wikis give you the opportunity to create a variety of pages, just like on a website. So, decide what pages you are going to want initially. You can always add and delete pages as you go along, but any endeavor is easier with a little planning ahead.


Now you can investigate the many wikis available to you. Do not consider the order in which I give these as signifying preference. I googles "education wikis" and this is the list I got:

Wetpaint: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/?t=anon
Free, ad-free wiki pages with easy to use templates, and education help.

PBWiki: http://pbwiki.com/academic.wiki
Free wikis dedicated to teachers. Good security features.

Wikispaces: http://www.wikispaces.com
Free to educators, easy to navigate, great technical support.

Wikidot: http://www.wikidot.com/learnmore:education
Free basic services, advanced services available for fee.

Google Sites: http://www.google.com/sites
Free, 10GB space, easy to use with other Google services.


Happy wiki-ing!

Wikis: Why should you use them in your classroom?

There are several really good reasons why teachers should engage their students with Web 2.0 technologies, and among others, wikis.

In an excellent article called Using and creating knowledge with new technologies: a case for students-as-designers published in the March 2006 issue of Learning, Media and Technology, Kay Kimber and Claire Wyatt-Smith gives the following reasons:

1. Students are sophisticated users of technologies outside of school. Many students have access to technologies that are more powerful and sophisticated than the technologies they use in school. To address this issue, teachers have to be able to use more sophisticated and powerful technology tools IN school. The danger is that students will find schoolwork less challenging and interesting than their activities outside of school.

2. Another point to remember is that students predominantly use their powerful and sophisticated technologies for social communication. Thus, teachers have to be instrumental in ensuring that their students develop into critical, creative users of new technologies. To do this, teachers have to equip their students with tools and resources to argue, analyze, evaluate, interpret, and persuade. In other words, teachers have to help their students develop their capacities to build their knowledge and critically engage with material through the use of technology.

3. Now to the practical pedagogy: Establishing a community of learners is one of the best ways to engage students in the learning process. A learning community with shared experiences fosters a sense of belonging, the building of shared values, escalating intellectual engagement with material (being willing to tackle more difficult and more complex issues), and a safe place to build identity. You can read more about communities of learners in Edutopia.

4. Wikis are the most accessible venue for showing evolution of thought on any given subject discussed on a wiki. Most wikis have a HISTORY section that keeps track of different versions of the pages. Students and teachers can follow the increase in knowledge and sophistication of thought through this versioning capability.

5. Wikis make very good e-portfolios with ample opportunity for collection of intellectual products and reflection on those products.

6. Wikis are great venues for collaboration, based on the idea that our collective knowledge is more than the individual knowledge of each of us.

7. Wikis can help develop critical thinking skills - evaluating information, considering how to improve information, and producing collaborative thinking.

8. Wikis fit the emphasis on constructivist learning where people are producers, not just consumers of knowledge. According to Vygotsky, Piaget and Dewey, learning is a social activity.

8. Wikis are easy to use.
Wikis are free.
Wikis are dynamic content.


Resources:
Educause has a good 2 page booklet on 7 Things You Need To Know About Wikis.
Brian Housand and Kristina Ayers has a wiki on wikis: The Wonderful World of Wikis.

Wikis: What are they?

Today I am starting a short series of blog entries on Wikis. I am planning 4 entries:

1. What are they?
2. Why should you be using them in your classroom?
3. How do you get started?
4. Ideas for using a wiki in the classroom.

Wikis are websites that allows visitors to participate in creating and editing the content. Usually, wikis are set up so that anyone can be a website designer without knowledge of specialized software and specialized knowledge (like knowing html). It is a perfect tool for collaboration, a way of sharing creative processes and products between many participants.

The word "wiki" is a Hawaiian language and it means "quick" or "fast."

For a quick wiki look at wiki's, watch this video from my favorite how-to website Commoncraft



People use wikis for many collaborative projects. The best known is probably Wikipedia, the collaborative encyclopedia, where, by the way, I have contributed citations for an article. Another great wiki for teachers is Curriki, a collaborative curriculum site where you can find lesson plans, teaching ideas and resources from all over the world.

I went searching wiki websites and found the following:
- ambientweather - "a community for sharing information and openly discussing products" offered for sale by related websites - a built in review space for their products.
- Made in China - a website offering electronics for sale.
- VAMworld - a website dedicated to Morgan and Peace dollars and all the varieties of dies (coin printings) available. A great resource for collectors of this kind of coin.
- Recipes Wiki - a vibrant site with more than 48,000 articles, and over 100 recipes for guacamole!
- Australia Travel Wiki - a website travellers to Australia put together.
- FamilySearchWiki - website with huge amounts of information on how to research and construct a family history.
- International Music Score Library Project - A website dedicated to keeping a virtual library of public domain music scores. To date it has a collection of more than 20,000 scores for 11,000 works, and 1,200 composers (information from Wikipedia).
- Using Wiki in Education - a wiki book must read for those interested in a scholarly exposition of the subject with lots of practical applications.
- ECU English 1200 service-learning - class wiki for a first-year research-writing course at East Carolina University.
- What we are trying to achieve - a student created history project website on women soldiers in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Check this one out. It is interesting.

As you can see, people use wikis for many different purposes. Some wikis are public - there for everyone to see and participate, others are protected (everyone can see it, but only members can contribute) and others are private, with only members allowed to see and contribute. One thing that is common to all of them, is that they allow collaboration and a gathering of corporate knowledge.

I know people say the fact that everyone can contribute makes the information on a wiki suspect. But don't you think the fact that so many people contribute also provides many eyes for checking accuracy and veracity?

For a history of the concept of Wiki, see the Wikipedia entry.
For a discussion of the value and dangers of Wikipedia, set aside about 20 minutes and watch this video by Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia Foundation on the birth and inner workings of Wikipedia.

Rwanda in May

Time to update you on my visit to Rwanda with my family. If I had to choose a country in Africa to live in it might very well be Rwanda. I used to say I'd love to live in Arusha, Tanzania, but I have to say Kigali, the capital of Rwanda comes close. There is an excitement in the city, with vibrant economic growth, relative stability in government, and some of the most beautiful scenery you can imagine.

Two things stand out from my time in Kigali: The visit Christelle and I paid to the Genocide Memorial, and the other a visit to Association Mwana Ukundwa.

The Genocide Memorial Center is a modern, interactive museum built on a site where 250,000 people killed in the genocide are buried, detailing the story of the Rwanda Genocide, as well as many other genocides in the history of the world. During about 100 days starting in April 1995 more than 1 million people were killed. We should remember that this mass killing did not happen by sending in armored vehicles or bombs, but it happened one by one, a slaughter of one person at a time by another person. The killings were not the worst part either. Millions more were displaced, systematically maimed, women and girls of all ages intentionally raped and tortured.

The scars are often still visible on people. I met a gentleman who carried a scar as big as my hand on the side of his head where a machete took away the skin and flesh from his skull. Another young lady told me she was adopted by her current family, because she lost every single member of her immediate and extended family. You can read some of the heartrending stories on the Genocide Memorial Center website. Even as I sit here writing about it, I am close to tears as I remember the pain and the strength of those survivors.

The greatest tragedy is that it could have been prevented if the world had paid attention. If you can stomach it, here is a video telling just a little about the impact of that 100 days. If you want to read more about this genocide, you may search the Memorial Center website, or read a fairly accurate account (from what I understand of the situation) in Wikipedia.





The thing that amazed me more than anything else was the deep reconciliation that has taken place and the fervent desire of Rwandese to never allow this level of hate to take over their society again. President Kagame is credited with policies that encourage reconciliation, political stability and economic growth.


A point to ponder was that even after all the times we have said "we will not let it happen again," the roots of genocide is clearly visible in other parts of the world. The UN published a report in 2005 detailing the atrocities committed in Darfur, but said that it could not be called a genocide since the intent did not appear to be "a specific intent to annihilate, in whole or in part, a group distinguished on racial, ethnic, national or religious grounds." This seems to be an issue of technical definition of a term only, since the crimes committed against people in that region are atrocious: 400,000 people killed and 2.5 million people displaced. You can read more about this terrible situation at DarfurScores.org.

Why all of this you ask? If we do not educate our gifted children to be concerned for others and to do what they can to prevent crimes against people groups, genocide will happen again. You can find out more about the topic at Genocide.org.

No, onto the next highpoint of our visit, and one with much more positive energy:

Association Mwana Ukundwa, or "Beloved Child Association", was founded by Mrs Mukankaka Rose, shortly after the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. Mrs. Rose is one of the most impressive people I have had the privilege to meet in my life - a woman of great compassion and entrepreneurial spirit.


During the genocide, Mrs. Rose made a promise to God that if He protected her family she would spend her life doing what He wanted her to do. None of her family perished and she started by gathering 40 orphans and finding foster families for them. She also found support for those families. Today her organization employ 19 people and they provide a range of services: Education, Vocational, HIV/AIDS, Micro Enterprise, and Evangelism. You can read of their accomplishments here. Association Mwana Ukundwa is recognized by the Rwandese government as a non profit organization.

This photograph shows some young ladies using sewing machines to make school uniforms for the children under the care of the Beloved Child Association.

If you are looking for a project that your students can adopt, this is a worthwhile endeavor.

Burundi and Rwanda in May

For those of you not familiar with the African continent, here is a map.

Burundi and Rwanda are those tiny countries in the center of Africa next to the long skinny water body (Lake Tanganyika), between Tanzania and The Democratic Republic of the Congo. This part of Africa has been ravaged by civil war and genocide for many long years, and people and the countryside bear the scars of the conflict even today. The world is aware of the genocide in Rwanda a little more than 10 years ago, but the same people groups also live in Burundi and the Congo and the Eastern parts of Tanzania. Many millions of people throughout the region have been killed, and many still remain in refugee camps.

While in Burundi, I spoke at a women's conference one afternoon. I mentioned some ways women can help children learn - reading to them, talking to them about colors, shapes, natural objects, and so on. The response was a surprise. In a country where 46% of the just over 8 million people who comprise the population is under 16 according to the CIA World Factbook, education is a huge challenge. More than 68% of the population are living in poverty.

The president, Mr. Pierre NKURUNZIZA (since 26 August 2005) faces huge challenges. His government is still under constant attack from rebels. In fact, the week before we arrived in the capital, Bujumbura, rebels lobbed a series of missiles into the city.

I was privileged to meet the first lady of Burundi, who attended the conference. She is an elegant and highly intelligent and thoughtful lady. There is a good possibility that I will return to Burundi in the near future to share more about education with these courageous women. In the photo to the right I am standing next to the first lady, with my daughter Christelle on her other side.

Next time, more about Rwanda.

Post Summer News

This has been a busy summer.

In May I went with my family to Burundi, Rwanda, and South Africa. In June, I spoke at Lagniappe in LaFayette, LA, and worked at the Summer Enrichment Workshop in Tuscaloosa, AL. July saw me in Connecticut at Confratute.

In the next few posts, I'll tell you more about all my activities. For now, check out the eSchoolNews funding alert at the top of the page. The information will change everytime the folks at eSchoolNews adds new information. I added this as a service to hard working teachers who wish to write grants for their classrooms.