Wikis by Johnshoy

Wikis

• Wikis in plain English on youtube video: edit and save are really important. Edit, write and save.
• A wiki can be used as a classroom management system (CMS).
• http://regionsdefrance.wikispaces.com/North
• http://aphistoria.pbworks.com/Common+Page

A Classroom NewsWiki: Using Wikis for Group Projects

March 6, 2010

What is a wiki?

http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

How can they be used in the second language classroom?

http://regionsdefrance.wikispaces.com/
http://aphistoria.pbworks.com/Common+Page
http://coasttocoast.pbworks.com/
http://wiki.woodward.edu/hannalee/doku.php?
http://topicsinmedia.pbworks.com

Let's make our NewsWiki - Title! 

Project 1: Collaborative Writing
Dear Abby

What you'll do:
In small groups, write a response to the prompts.
In small groups, add more content to different prompt, editing previous writing as necessary.
Individually, give feedback to the writers in the comments section.

Project 2: News beat with individual columnists

• cooking
• health and fitness
• sports 

What you'll do:
In a small group, choose your "news beat"
Individually, create a page for your column
Search for content - and save URLs to your wiki page

• links to text, content - Google
• images - Google images, Flickr (Creative Commons)
• videos - YouTube, TeacherTube, Google video, edublogs.tv, blip.tv

Peer edit your group member's pages

As a teacher, how would you assess this?
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/

How can you create your own wiki?
https://plans.pbworks.com/academic/

• Students can use different colors in the editing, the history, assigned colors.
• For Wiki Comments: Be specific, something good, something for improvement, ask a question.
• For collaborative, use hot topic questions, with vocabulary and grammar that is being taught, fun fluency.
• Example of a collaboration, an advice column:
  Dear Abby:  Our grandson recently got married and one Sunday afternoon the newlyweds paid us an unexpected visit. After visiting for a short while, I thought my wife should have offered them some coffee or tea.
  I would like to know who should take the initiative to make an offering.  I feel that the wife (who is the home-maker) should have taken it upon herself (or should have asked me) to make a lunch or something to offer to our guests.  I know that we made a bad impression on the young couple.
  What is the correct way to handle this kind of situation? -- WANTS TO LEAD BY EXAMPLE
  
  Dear WANTS TO LEAD BY EXAMPLE,
  
  Dear Grandpa,
   In my opinion, offering a cup of coffee or tea is the expected thing to do without the need of any invitation from your wife. The  bride is visiting for the first time. It is kind of you to consider the impression you left on the newlyweds but it equally important to respect your wife, the "home-maker".  If you feel that she should have taken the lead but perhaps was too busy doing other things, then it certainly would have been appropriate for you to offer to help your wife without waiting for an invitation.  In this day and age, finders keepers. In other words, if you see the need, step up and be counted, step up to the plate. In order to avoid the same situation in the future, speak with your wife about your feelings and plan ahead before company visits again.
  
  Good luck with your marriage!
  Abby 
  
  Example of an info page:
  Kolaches are one of my family's favorite treats.  In my family, a kolache is a baked good that is has a filling. The dough is sweet, but not too sweet.  Some people make savory kolaches, but in my family, we only make sweet.  Favorite filling flavors include poppyseed, prune, apricot, and raspberry.  Sometimes we use two fillings and make poppyseed with a dollop of apple sauce, or prune with a dollop of slightly sweetened cream cheese.
  
  My grandma taught me how to make kolaches when I was young and she learned how to make them from her mother when she was young.  It's an ethnic recipe; my grandma was a self-proclaimed "Bohunk" but perhaps better known to you as Bohemian, or Czech.  In the U.S., kolaches go by a number of different names and spellings such as kolace, kolach, or kolacky.  All of these are derivations of the Czech or Slavic plural form, koláče (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolache).  In addition to the different spellings, Americans have different ways of pronouncing kolache.  Even though my family spells the word "kolache" we pronounce it like [ko lahch], while other people pronounce it as [ko lah chee] (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kolacky).  In addition to taking on different spellings and pronunciations, kolaches take on different appearances too, depending on the baker.
  
  Now we are creating our own pages.
  la Caraïbe française
  
  http://allonsauparc.pbworks.com/
  is my new French wiki
  
  
  For Collaboration:
  
  Many times students - and even teachers! - need some help with making constructive comments on the work of others. Here is a list adapted from an art site that you might find helpful.  What can you add to the list?
  
  

  Guidelines for constructive criticism

  Adapted from http://news.deviantart.com/article/21488/
  
• Look at everything – twice – before writing a comment, so that you have a good handle on what has been done and can make an intelligent comment.
• Be specific. “Good job” doesn’t give any information as to what in particular you liked. Give details for positive and negative comments.
• Keep the tone of your comment encouraging. Constructive criticism builds people up rather than knocking them down.
• Say what’s right with the work first. If you like something, say so. Knowing why people like it can still help because they know what they are doing right. If you really can’t see anything to praise, then question if you’re objective enough to give a truly constructive comment.
• Pick only one or maybe two things that could use improvement, even if there’s more than that wrong. It’s easier to improve slowly than cope with correcting an entire list of faults. When you comment on something you don’t like, suggest an alternative or a solution. Be careful how you phrase the criticism. It’s your opinion, it’s a suggestion, it might be helpful if…
• You should never flame someone’s work, no matter what. Flaming isn’t big and it isn’t clever and it’s never right, no matter what the target may or may not have done.

Articles

How To Leave Constructive Comments
by Stephany Springer
http://searchwarp.com/swa304759.htm

Teaching Commenting Skills

A blog post about elementary student commenting - but good information for all ages!

Giving Feedback

adapted from the Capella University Courseroom

• Plan your feedback, making notes first
• Direct comments strictly to the work and ideas, without personal comments
• Be specific. If something isn't working, describe why
• Suggest alternative ways to accomplish the goal
• Be liberal with praise for something you like
• Be diplomatic and honest at the same time
• Ask questions for clarity
• Acknowledge valid points of view
• Explain yourself.  Go beyond, "good point!" with short paragraphs

Copy and paste the following key at the top of your partner's article.  Then, highlight any grammar errors according to the key below.  You don't need to fix the errors - just highlight them so your partner will know what errors to look for!


Green - subject verb agreement error
Pink- noun count error
Orange - preposition error
Yellow - verb tense error
Blue - spelling error
Purple - word choice error

•