Wiki Activity - Mobile Phones in the Classroom?

This week we participated in an activity based on a wiki website, dealing with the implications of the use of mobile phones in the classroom. We approached this issue through Bono's six thinking hats scaffold.

The way that the activity was set out in wiki clearly outlined what needed to be considered for each colour hat and made responding to each column easy. It was interesting to see what other people wrote and to bounce off other's ideas to help form my final opinion. I believe mobile phones in the classroom would create more negativity than positivity by increasing the chance of cyber bullying and creating a distraction from learning. The use of mobile phones would hinder, not enhance, student learning and with so many other useful ICT tools available there is, in my opinion, no need to incorporate the use of mobile phones into student learning.

 

Working with Wiki - Yay or Nay?

Wiki provided a space for collaboration amongst our class, a space to add our own opinions and view others. Students in the 21st century need to be engaged in their learning and I believe the use of a wiki space allows students a space to collaborate and share their own ideas in a creative and engaging way.

THE USE OF WIKIS IN THE CLASSROOM PMI CHART
POSITIVE	MINUS	INTERESTING
Every student can participate by editing, modifying and adding information	A student can remove or change what another student has added to the space	A log of access and contributions made to wiki is kept
A perfect way to incorporate collaboration into the classroom – in cases of group work, wiki could be used a collaboration space to organise assignment – can then be used as evidence that every group member participated	Only one person at a time can add, edit or modify wiki at any given time to avoid students writing over the top of each other	Activities on wiki can be watched by guests such as a teacher.
History function can recover any information that is lost	The teacher must be constantly regulating or checking that students are developing their work safely, ethically and legally	Students are able to compare views and bounce ideas off each other
Teacher could assign homework dealing with wiki – engaging students digitally and allowing them to take part in 21st century learning and collaboration and discussion as opposed to homework sheets.	Cyber bullying may become an issue associated with this type of learning environment.	The degree of learning that can take place is beyond what can be learnt from the teacher just standing in the front of the class talking. Students are able to investigate and feed off each other for ideas
It allows students to be creative and work collaboratively	Students who don’t have easy access or no access to the internet will suffer	Activities can be activated within the website
Links to images, other websites, youtube etc can be created and utilised

 

Creating a Wiki - Personal Experience

I am a complete newbie when it comes to creating my own Wiki Space. However, after having a quick play with my own wiki page and participating in the mobile phone wiki activity I have realised that the use of a wiki space in a classroom environment would engage and enhance students and their learning. As mentioned in the PMI chart above, it provides a space where students are able to work creatively and collaboratively with one another to view and form opinions, assignments, activities, discussions etc.

It is a great tool that could be incorporated into any learning environment. My two fields of study include Legal Studies and Mathematics and I believe that wiki could be used in both classrooms. Although it would most likely benefit students in my Legal Studies class, students studying math could also make use of this space by using it as a collaborative area to discuss assignments.

However, we have to consider a few things. Such as do all students have access to a computer and internet at home? Do all students have access to a computer and internet in the classroom? Do all students have enough knowledge to navigate their way through and participate in acitivities on the wiki space?

I have included a link that will take you to my own wiki space. I have not done much to it, but I have created a new page, uploaded youtube clips, uploaded an image and created a post, proving to myself just how easy it is to navigate.