Wikis and Wikipedia

Wikis, in general, are a good option for collaborative projects and planning. They seem to still be the platform of choice for collaborative global projects like The Flat Classroom Project. The advantages are that it is a self-contained framework that allows multiple users to edit and add new content to appropriate parts of the Wiki.

The only experience I have had of using a Wiki as a student was with Hong Kong University. We used a Wiki to  report and document a number of lesson studies. It is still vital to plan as a group who does what so in that instance it still instills verbal and organizational teamwork in students.

Wikipedia is still a bone of contention in schools. Teachers seem loathe to the fact that it is the one stop shop for students to go to to get information. Why is this?
It's the fact that anyone can edit the information at any time without a due editing process. A vast majority of teachers use Wikipedia all the time but it's the validation of fact finding from numerous reliable and confirmed resources that teachers want to develop in their students.

photo © 2009 Johann Dréo | more info (via: Wylio)
One little spin-off from Wikipedia I would like to bring up is the social networking shadow schools need to be aware that they may be cast. Are schools aware that their profile is out there, being updated by people from outside their school. Who is running the school group on Facebook? How do they keep track of their Wikipedia entry making sure everything is accurate. There is a lot of ambiguity in schools at the minute; a lot of policies in place that students should not blog openly or use the school's name when they publish content on the web. When in fact, in my opinion, the work that students do in school with the school's name attached is the ONLY work that the school can observe fully.

It's a strange time for schools and social media content. There needs to be more thought from administration into the digital footprint of the school and which forms of public information they are able to manage and are willing to oversee.

UDL Checklist

UDL Checklist on MERLOT Lesson Plan here: Google Doc UDL Checklist

I found that a lot of features in my initial lesson plan were UDL friendly. In a multimedia project this tends to be the case more often than not. It's tough in a very short computer lab session to differentiate the instruction at the start of a lesson. I tend to "hope" that the visualization of the activity on the IWB, the interactivity (I get students to come up and manipulate the various objects) and my actual voice will get the initial, introductory message across.

Then the actual user interface of the website/software is tested. I am shocked more often than not at certain "educational" websites and software that are very inaccessible and hard to use for elementary school students. Thankfully Glogster is a very user-friendly website with a shallow learning curve.

Sharing Learning Material from MERLOT

MERLOT URL:
http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm;jsessionid=B92C51F5D54920AFD42EB716FE3C26C5?id=508084

Material URL:
https://www.msu.edu/user/rothfel2/Artifacts/LiatRothfeldSTAIR.ppsx

Quality of Content:

I love this STAIR resource as it is totally significant for students using computers on a daily basis. To give the students the skills to grab the concept of error and dialog boxes is another hurdle overcome in the problems of usability. Removing the unnecessary distractions will obtain the learning objectives more effectively and efficiently.


Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool


This STAIR could be used in a lot of different ways. At the start of a unit of work it could be explained to students what dialog boxes may occur during the activity. In demonstrating the range of dialog boxes to the students, students can become comfortable with new software quicker and get on with the learning! The STAIR could be easily changed for different activities.

Students should be able to (circum)-navigate dialog boxes in the software they are using to minimize disruption and effectively achieve the learning objectives of the activity without wasting time on obstacles of usability.

The target learner is a student who may not be used to the dialog boxes they will encounter while using particular software in a class actvity

The very visual approach of the STAIR will be very useful to preparing the students for the appropriate dialog boxes


The STAIR can be easily edited for different software packages students will use throughout the school year.
Any teacher could adapt the STAIR for their class and minimal instruction would need to be passed on to other teachers leading the STAIR to be a highly useful activity for teachers in class.


Ease of Use:


Everything is designed very visually and towards a younger student base. There are great big arrows and buttons for the student to press. Audio and visual cues are given for instant feedback to the user. The student will not get lost easily as the STAIR is made in a logical true/false pathway. There would be minimal instruction and documentation needed for students and in so doing the activity would be popular and attractive for students to undertake.