Welcome everyone, this week we are going to be talking about Paperless Classrooms and Web based instruction! To get started we’d like you to read this quick and short article titled “Is the Paperless Classroom Possible?” Afterwards, spend a few minutes brainstorming about what your feelings are about the paperless classroom, the good, the bad and the ugly. There is no right or wrong answers here, we would just like to see how people feel, to get a better understanding of where we should take future discussions. Thanks guys.
Credibility
1. After reading the article “Growing Wikipedia Refines Its ‘Anyone Can Edit’ Policy” from the New York Times do you think it’s fair that there is protection on some of the major wikis for example George Bush? Does this help make wikipedia more safe for use?
In the classroom
2. In the article included in the professor’s debate (see e-mail from Professor Sarver for the attachment) it says, “At the same time, he [Jim Wales] put in place a set of rules and policies that he continues to promote, like the need to present information with a neutral point of view.” The article suggests it is crucial to keep the information at a neutral point of view because biased opinions create vandalism.
What are ways to avoid bias when editing a wiki? How can these tools and techniques be useful in an English classroom?
3. In the article included in the debate, it states that “in some colleges, it has become common for professors to assign students to create work that appears on Wikipedia.”
Could this benefit a high school class as well?
Wrap up
After learning about the pros and cons of Wikipedia, have your views on it changed since your initial discovery of it? How will you utilize or defend against using Wikipedia as a teacher?
High culture and low culture refer to the level of esteem held for certain things, as in art, or literature, or even just news. The high culture aspect of literature include writers like Hemingway, Shakespeare, Twain, and others of that sort- being almost entirely made up of white males, many ethnic works are not considered part of the literary canon. There are many works that are very high in quality, but do not receive recognition because they were not written by the select few “experts.” Only experts in specific fields can get on the news, while the average Joe who does the same research would never be able to reach such a broad audience.
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At the end of the debate there’s a link to an article about how Wikipedia was used to create an extremely comprehensive documentation of the Virginia Tech shooting. Check it out. Does the use of the internet blur the lines between high and low culture in terms of information distribution?
P.S. Bonus points to anyone who tells me how to mae a new category. I cant seem to find the button for it…
We’ve all used information from Wikipedia, but how many of us have actually contributed to it? We though it may be a good idea for all of us to sign up to Wikipedia and check out/ contribute (if you can) to our own Cortland page.
a.) Log onto Wikipedia and create an account, it takes about 5 seconds. Once on the homepage go to “login” then come up with a username and share it with the class through the blog.
b.) Once you are logged in on your account type in “SUNY Cortland” in the search engine.
c.) If you can, edit or add things (pictures or information) to the Wiki about our college
d.) Once you are under the editing page you can click on “this pages edit history” and see what our peers have edited or added.
* just a side note – I’ve already found spelling errors on the page and possibly information that could be incorrect- help fix our school page!
Did the editing exercise help with understanding how incorrect information and vandalism could be an arising potential problem?
ps. DONT forget to read the links that Professor Sarver sent out by the next post. Most importantly the New York Times article and the e-mail discussions between the English department professors. Thanks!
I was in tenth grade. I had a five page research paper to write. Being the world class procrastinator that I am, it was now the weekend before its due date the following Monday. I was in the library checking every reference computer for any books on “The Visigoths.” As you might imagine I left the library empty handed. So as I sat at home thinking of excuses I hadn’t yet used to extend a deadline, I figured I’d do a search on yahoo.As I had figured, the first few results were a few vague, fairly unusable, explanations of who they were (they were an East Germanic tribe that sacked Rome in 410 by the way), but just as I was about to completely give up I stumbled upon a link that sent me to some oddly named site containing more information on the Visigoths than I could have ever wanted to know. I based my paper almost entirely off of this single site and with it was able to pull off a B+. This site was Wikipedia, and it saved my butt.
In this blogging session Maddie and I will be leading you in a discussion of Wikipedia and high culture VS low culture. But before we really get into it we thought it would be nice to hear about your first experience and initial thoughts were on Wikipedia. How did you come to learn of its existence? What was your initial reaction?
With Wikis being an open information center, we as future educators will have to anticipate how the very nature of this resource will impact each student individually.
Please watch the video titled, How Does Collaboration Work? and provide a response which accounts for the perspective of a student who is shy or just not confident in the quality of their work.Will using a Wiki prove to be a positive or negative learning experience for this student?What suggestions can you offer?
Also, as another source of discussion think about what rules we should observe when monitoring the Wiki.Should we encourage students to write freely without strict adherence to the traditional rules of grammar, or should we instead require students to post only when their thoughts are completely materialized and polished.Remember that part of the beauty of a Wiki is that it allows us to return to our work and edit it as we desire.
By now you all should have received an invitation to our class Wiki.Hopefully you are finding this new source of information gathering exciting and interesting!!!!
As former students we all know the challenges which we will face when running a classroom, and trying to maintain respect and order among students in a classroom community.Like myself, I am sure that all of you have thought of the potential catastrophe’s which could take place when students have the power to individually edit a class document.In response to this concern please take a look at the following link: http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html.Browse this site, but pay particular attention to the section entitled Wiki Security and Tracking.
Do you feel the security features of the mentioned Wiki are enough to deter students from engaging in inappropriate use of the Wikis?Would you feel more or less comfortable using a Wiki in your class after reading this?Also consider how parents and school administration could be convinced that a Wiki would be appropriate and secure for the classroom.
Thanks to Wikis the term collaboration has been redefined!No longer do we need editors, publishers, and copyrights as thought of in the traditional sense.With Wikis, individuals can now collectively compile enormous quantities of information, all while circumventing the traditional channels.Let’s say someone wants to create a detailed account of the Virginia Tech shooting.Rather than one person engaging in countless hours of research and interviews, they could instead start a Wiki.Using a Wiki, the creator could introduce the topic and present any information which they have compiled up until that point.From here on out the Wiki serves as a self-sustaining public library, where viewers can add and edit information to essentially create the most up to date information data base available.
As quoted in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts…, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia said “Imagine a world in which every single person on the plant is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.That’s what we’re doing.”(59).
What we hope to accomplish here on our blog, is to see if as a collective group of individuals we can come to some sort of consensus on the proposed idea of using Wikis as an effective resource in the classroom.To introduce you to the world of Wikis please first take a look at the following video:
After watching the video, do you think that a Wiki will be something that would be appropriate for the classroom in terms of ease and accessibility, as well as usefulness? Can you see this as something which would be beneficial to your classroom?
Also, please list your email address along with your post so that I can send you an invite to our class Wiki!!!!!(however if you are not comfortable posting your e-mail address in the blog you can send it to me on WebCT)In order to participate open the link that I send you and the password you will need to enter is: eng307When you arrive at the Wiki front page which you will immediately see, it will describe how easy it is to start your own Wiki if you would like to; however to access our class Wiki just go to recent activity and you should be able to access the most recent version of our class Wiki (titled Eng307), along with all previous versions.Just read the page, take a look around and have some fun!!!
Look at page 47 in the Richardson book. The first paragraph under Blogging with Students talks about internet availability. After reading that paragraph, I didn’t want to simply ask you how you felt about some kids not having internet, I kind of wanted to challenge you. (sorry dont hate me lol) I want to ask, how will you make an attempt to level the playing field for all your students, knowing that some won’t have at-home access to the internet? Or rather, how would you run your blog if only 4/5 of your students had the internet at home?
Once we’re teaching, we’re all going to have students who we fear will use the blog inappropriately, and perhaps it is safe to say one or two always will. Fear not. There is a blogger’s code of ethics! I wondered if this text was somehow officialized, but then I wondered if there even could be an official code of ethics for free conversation… Anyway, I thought the one at [ http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php] was good. Browse through their code of “blogging ethics,” and discuss what ethical problems you might have as teachers who incorporate blogging into the class, and perhaps how to prevent/solve them… PS: Sorry if it seems like this was too quick to post two!
