AndrewA's dashboard

So far, I'm asking students to post reflections and what they learned in class, on the internet, or on the wiki. I'm stoked that they are so excited about using the wiki, but I'm getting a lot of comments left by students like, "yo what's up," "hi girlfriend what are you doing," etc. I'm glad they are using it, and I want to encourage it as much as possible, but I'm wondering if it is getting too conversation-y. Any other teachers have similar thoughts???
mindfulgrade6.pbwiki.com

I have thought about having students create individual pages however, I like that the students can read other students posts. I think that it encourages students to take their time and think about what they are going to say before they post.

I give students a week to post their answers before we discuss it in class. Students have readily posted when they feel strongly about something so it really depends on the topic. There are always a few who wait until the last second.

Hi Kori,

That's an interesting approach - have you found that your students readily answer the questions, or do they wait for others to post first? I like how they individualize their answers in color.

I've noticed a bunch of teachers who encourage their students to create a personal wiki page and respond to assignments on that page.

-KM

In order to improve my students writing and reasoning skills in my social studies classes, I occasionally use my wiki as a discussion board. I post a question related to whatever topic we are covering and students are required to post a response (at times they are also required to reply to other student posts). This gives students who normally don't speak in class a chance to share their views. It forces all students to form an opinion and support their position.

A few times a year I word the question in the form of a standardized test question. It is my hope that this will help students practice extended response answers. Students are told that they are being graded on how well they support their answers.

An example can be found at http://mrsatwood.pbwiki.com/Election+...

Hi Sammy- I'd love to help you with this. Yaplet is a chat service. You can install a variety of chat services on your wiki- if you go to "Edit Page" -> "Insert Plugin" -> and then "Chat" you can see what's available.

You may also want to check out some of the templates we have available for librarians (http://educators.pbwiki.com/Sample+te.... This should give you a good start :)

HI Rachael, I'm glad I met you here. Virtual Referencing is actually my area of interest. I'm trying to creat this using a PBwiki in a form of FAQ for our growing library. I'll be glad if you could put me through and give me a basic idea on how to go about this. by the way, what is "Yaplet"? Regards. -sammy

~Thanks for the clarification Krissy Mo!

A>Given the great variation in learning styles, especially in beginning wiki users; approaching with one wiki schema in mind seems wrong headed.

B*Making projects available to students discourages individual learning if progress is focused toward a single process that will be replicated once the students have learned it.

C&Allowing collaboration to continue on new themes with the same topics may foster a more fluid, infectious and enjoyable class.