Wiki Wacky

This is how my head is feeling. Starting two new novels and two wikis simultaneously. Students have a choice between The Cay by Theodore Taylor and Esperanza Risng by Pam Munoz. Plus, except for a handful of students, this is their first experience with a wiki. I am laying the groundwork for both wikis over the long weekend. I know I will need "How to" for changing the icon. I am sure this will be their first order of business. Any advice for teaching 2 novels at the same time?

Short, Fast, and Easy

Short, Fast, and Easy...Anyone who knows me knows I am not describing myself. My name is Erica Hartman and I am a 6th grade Language Arts teacher. Like many other Sparta Middle School teachers, I am trying to make it all work in a one computer classroom this year.
Angela said it perfectly in her previous post when she wrote: "The bottom line is this: Times, they are a changin' and if we, as teachers, don't keep up, we will certainly be kept out."
This scares me because as a teacher, we need to be in the loop and this continuous loop that is Web 2.o technology is moving fast. Our priority is to be able to reach and connect with our students. Well, what if you are trying to stay one step ahead of your tech savvy students but find it frustrating to implement your Web 2.0 ideas in your classroom?
Here are four web tools you can use. They are short, fast, easy, and free. You will feel like you are teaching in a 21st century classroom. Your students will think you are tech savvy. All you need is one working computer in your classroom. A Smartboard is a plus, but not a necessity for all of them. I'd be interested to know what you would do with these tools in your classroom.
Voicethread Example
Animoto
Exploretree
Classtools

Sometimes it is hard to remember that technology is only one way or gimmick we can use to connect with the digital natives that are our students. Watch this YouTube video and you'll forget about your technology frustrations. In fact, you might be inspired to give a good ol' lecture today.

What would you tell your students today if this were the last day you would ever teach?

This can't all be true, but if it is...

The title of this movie is "A Vision of Students Today." These are obviously college students, but if this is how they feel, I can't imagine what a movie made by our students would look like when they are in college - if they will even set foot on an actual campus. If you don't have time to watch the movie, just read the transcript and if you want, get involved in the conversation.

I have to wonder if the kindergartners of today will ever walk on a college campus. Will my 2 and a half year old daughter ever have to schlep to a 7 am class in her pajamas in a torrential downpour? (I could do with her missing the experience of a frat party.)

There are obvious pros and cons to virtual colleges. In a recent NYT article entitled, "Classroom of the Future is Virtually Anywhere," Joseph Berger interviewed college professors and got some very interesting opinions. The first are about the cons of virtual colleges and univeristies:

Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers wonders what will happen, should campuses go exuberantly online, to the intangibles — the late-night bull sessions, the serendipitous strolls with professors, the chance to feel one’s oats in student government? And what will one more switch to electronic conversation do to our need for intimate human connections, he asks?

Andrew Delbanco, the Columbia humanities professor, said flatly that it would be impossible to put his seminar on war and culture online because “the energy and spontaneity of discussion among people sitting together in a small room cannot be replicated by electronic exchanges."

Dr Duck, who teaches an online course at Penn State notes in her slippers at her dinig room table has different viewpoint:

Dr. Duck, a respected instructor who taught conventionally for nine years and online for five, said she “wouldn’t go back to the classroom if they doubled my salary.” Her work, she thinks, is on the frontier of education in a global economy.

She also points out that online postings are more reasoned and detailed than off-the-cuff classroom observations. Students learn as much from one another’s postings, informed by the real business world, as they do from instructors, they say. And Kevin Krull, a technology executive, pointed out that introverts reluctant to speak up in class can strut their stuff.

In her dining room, her children sometimes pause beside her as she teaches, and she does not shoo them away.

“It’s good for them to see this in action,” she said. “It’s going to be their world.”

Do you think your children or students will have a traditional college/university experience?

How can we prepare them if they won't?

What will they be missing out on if they don't?

Great AntiDrug Assembly Today

Paul was one of the most captivating speakers I have ever seen. The students were raving about the assembly and begged me to put his site on the Smartboard. We even took an impromptu field trip to the parking lot to check out his Honda/BMW hybrid. He even has BMW floor mats. Check out his site www.justthewayyouare.com for complete information.

Last Lecture

I have been meaning to use Voicethread for a while

And I finally got some time in the computer lab so I did. It would be best if each student had their own account, but I just made one for my class and let them make a continuous Voicethread. It is great because it is totally anonymous and they love to try to guess whose voice it is. Now I am set on using Ustream. My students saw Mr. Higgins' presentation and immediately came up with ideas for TV shows and guess what? They were all about topics we are learning about in class.

Wiki vs. 21 classes- and the winner is...?

I am on team wiki.
There are pros and cons to both wikispaces and 21 classes. However, wiki has very few cons when it comes to using it with 6th graders.
Customer Service and Help
Wiki wins hands down. Their help pages are easy to use and they respond almost instantly to emails. On 21 classes, they have so few help topics and I actually had to use the telephone to contact them and got a message back after 3 days. Plus, 21 classes only offers 50 free accounts and a public wiki is pretty much a free for all.
Navigation and Visual Appeal
It is very easy to change the look and feel of a wiki and I really like the "tab appeal" of wiki. I can easily see how many postings there are on a page. Plus, everything you put on the home page is visible. On 21 classes, after you post 5 topics, you cannot see the 5 before and they are very hard to find.
Setting up student accounts
Unless your school assigns student email accounts, setting up accounts of any kind can be a pain. However, 21classes wins because you do not need email addresses to set up accounts for your students. In wiki, you do unless you ask the wizards at wiki to set accounts up for you , but this takes time and advance planning.
Personalization
Depending on how you set up your wiki, anyone who is a member can edit whatever they want, that is pretty much a wiki given and part of the game. However, on 21 classes, each student gets their own weblog that they can personalize with backgrounds, icons, videos and music. This allows them a great sense of ownership. However, as a teacher you need to check up on the weblogs to make sure nothing inappropriate is posted. Unlike comments which you can accept or deny, personalization of the weblog is not monitored. Wiki also gives each member a mailbox that remains on the top of the screen when they are logged in. It is very easy to check your messages and respond to either the whole group or to just one member. I find it very hard for the students (and myself) to check the messages on the 21 classes blog and it is not easy to respond.
Security
21classes. You can make them both as secure or unsecure as you want. Anything on a wiki can be recovered or deleted. Watch out - when a student creates a wiki account, they have access to your (probably private and or protected) wiki and any public wiki. On 21 classes any comments or posting are deferred to the owner (in my case the teacher) of the blog before they are posted. You can set a deadline such as "At 7 am and 7pm I will release comments if appropriate." Since I have started blogging in my classes there has only been one incident where I had to remove someone. The students are so into blogging that they take the rules very seriously.
Stats
21 classes wins. They offer so much mathematical info that sometimes my brain hurts. The charts and graphs they provide are endless. But for me, seeing the tab on wiki that tells how many times a discussion question has been answered is enough.
Fun Factor
Wiki wins. It is just fun to say "wiki." Plus, the competitiveness of making your page the best and being one of the top edited sites on the wikispaces home page makes wiki seem like a game. A game where there is a lot of learning going on.

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Which do you like better? I am in an arguing mood.