Wikis and Blogs…

Ever wonder about these buzzwords and what they mean? Ever think about how they could be used to enhance teaching and learning? This workshop provides you with a detailed understanding of these revolutionary collaboration and content presentation tools and their application to academia. In addition, you will create and publish Wikis and Blogs.

Personal Experience with using Wikis and Blogs in the classroom.

T.Mitchell

Using Wikis and Blogs in the classroom as a collaborative tool is helpful for a few basic reasons.

• Students have the opportunity to create an community outside of the classroom.
• Students begin to understand the collaborative aspect of writing which helps with the writing process.
• Instructors are able to create a contained online space tailored to various classroom dynamics.
• Instructors can use contained space to direct students to other links.
• Everything new post (whether it be blog or wiki) is time-stamped.

Below is a link to my personal teachingwiki.org page. This link is posted in my student's Blackboard account (under Web Resources) to avoid excuses of lost URL addresses.

Notice Links: FYC College Writing homepage, updated Detailed Weekly Schedule, Blackboard, Classmate's Blog pages, MyCompLab, and their collaborative projects.

I am also able to direct students to outside sites, such as: Dictionary.com, NY Times, NPR.org, You.Tube, and other sites of interest.

T. Mitchell's Wiki Page

Unlike Blackboard (which makes courses unavailable after a semester), my wiki page of detailed schedules, collaborative projects, and blogs will remain as-is; until I feel prepared to alter it. As an instructor, I can get to know student personalities through posts, blogs, and pages.

Personally this home base page allows me to create a viable online community. One wiki page contains their Classmate's blogs so it is a one-stop process to begin responding to each other. I have noticed that students who do not communicate in the actual classroom have developed online relationships through response blogs. For example, WBadillo is a generally very shy during class-time and does not communicate openly with other students. But through his blog he reaches out to students and they respond.

In order to assess their blogs, I first look at the time stamps. In my class, we blog three times a week--Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday (by 2:00 am). Then I assess word count--at least 250 words. Content and tone are next on the list and extra points are offered for pictures or links to other sites. Each blog is worth a total of 10 points and they are repeatedly reminded of how to attain the full ten points. They understand tone and style is important for gaining an audience and they frequently use humor pictures or You.Tube videos to attract students to their blogs.

The collaborative projects also aid in creating an online community. I noticed many students were not fully aware of the diversity of the USF campus and asked to turn the ipods and cell-phones off while they strolled through campus. They used their camera phones or digital cameras to snap a picture of a USF student representative of their choice then post it under the appropriate page. This project was assessed as a pass/fail project but every student was willing and excited for collaborative project.

I have also asked ENC1102 students to become more familiar with specific Rhetoric/Argument terms through weekly posting of their own definitions and outside examples of terms. These are assessed very similarly to blogs. Time-stamps, content, and extra points for style, humor, or visuals. Students use this Site weekly to aid them in completing projects and understanding the jargon of argument.

Besides minor glitches with students who do not fully comprehend the collaborative Wiki-nature, I have encountered no problems with using these two technologies. Students have even told me how grateful they were for the opportunity to learn new technologies. As long as they enjoy the wikis and blogs, I will continue using them for assessment, creation of online-communities, and collaborative projects.