According to the Smartteaching organization “Wikis are an exceptionally useful tool for getting students more involved in curriculum. They’re often appealing and fun for students to use, while at the same time ideal for encouraging participation, collaboration, and interaction.” I agree with this because for some students, to learn from the computer is more attractive than attending to classes. Besides, Wikis offer a virtual classroom for teachers to put into practice activities and strategies to teach English. One only needs some basic knowledge in regards to the use of computers to create a wiki; nonetheless, it is important to bare a big deal of knowledge as well as motivation to carry out a Wiki on some specific topic. As teacher, I will implement wikis to create presentations, guides, and projects that students must complete either at home, or in the classroom. For example, one can embed incomplete power point presentation for students to complete with some information. Then, in groups they will present the particulates of their presentations in front of the class. Another way to use Wikis to teach English could be given by means of training students in the use of wikis to develop a topic. Since there are loads of topics to be covered during the scholar year, it would be a great idea for students to provide a Wiki in which they are going to post whatever they consider relevant to the topic selected.
Elaborating a Wiki might sound complicated, even though, it is not that hard. Certainly, Wikis are tools that can contribute in any educational process. Something that really called my attention was the fact that no matter how structured the process was, there was always a gate to innovate. In others words, the use of Wikis as a mediation activity does not restrict the way that students develop each one of their projects. Besides, if we take into account the matter that the information and steps are shown, we could infer that the process would be in charge of the teacher and this would be the one who plays the main role but it is not. The information is presented sequentially; as a result, the students use each step to reach the next stage of the project in order to get full credit. In my opinion, the steps are used as a guide by the students, no more than that. Once students get involved in their project, they obtain a bunch of possibilities. To illustrate these words, the author suggest that “Early implementations of wikis in educational settings have shown that the more autonomy teacher give to students in terms of negotiations the scope and quality of the content they are creating the better.” (p. 61) As we can notice, the process should be well prepared by considering all factors involve in the project and also it should have the chance to students to provide something that they can create by themselves. • I would use Wikis to assign research projects. I would divide the whole class in subgroups with the intention of gathering information about a specific topic. Then each group should complete certain steps like description of situations, formulation of hypothesis, elaboration of essays, and so on. I would ask for an oral presentation in order to show the results of the research (all stipulated in a rubric chart). • I would use Wikis as a final project. The idea is to select one topic covered during the classes with the intention of being an expert for a day. Each student must follow all the steps raised in the Wiki to get enough information to present the topic to the class during 10 minutes.
With the implementation of wikis in the English lessons, the development of the instruction takes a very different turn. Behind all the collaborative work and original production, it is necessary to keep in mind that every person has something to add and something to share. As mentioned in Chapter 4( Wikis: Easy Collaboration for All ) page 63, “ It´s a great opportunity to introduce students to the concepts of open-source software, community collaboration, respect for others people´s ideas, intellectual property and public domain and much more.” In my lessons, the use of a wiki could help me a lot in the presentation and practice periods because in these stages students´ participation and involvement are essential. I ´d ask students to develop some exercises and task-oriented projects, for example in the topic of foods, I´d ask them to elaborate a restaurant´s menu,a shopping list for the christmas dinner, or even thier own version of a common recipe; in order to assess their proficiency and organization of ideas. This means that we can facilitate not only the learning of a language but also the capacity to be part of a big team communicating with each other.
According to the Smartteaching organization “Wikis are an exceptionally useful tool for getting students more involved in curriculum. They’re often appealing and fun for students to use, while at the same time ideal for encouraging participation, collaboration, and interaction.” I agree with this because for some students, to learn from the computer is more attractive than attending to classes. Besides, Wikis offer a virtual classroom for teachers to put into practice activities and strategies to teach English. One only needs some basic knowledge in regards to the use of computers to create a wiki; nonetheless, it is important to bare a big deal of knowledge as well as motivation to carry out a Wiki on some specific topic.
ReplyDeleteAs teacher, I will implement wikis to create presentations, guides, and projects that students must complete either at home, or in the classroom. For example, one can embed incomplete power point presentation for students to complete with some information. Then, in groups they will present the particulates of their presentations in front of the class.
Another way to use Wikis to teach English could be given by means of training students in the use of wikis to develop a topic. Since there are loads of topics to be covered during the scholar year, it would be a great idea for students to provide a Wiki in which they are going to post whatever they consider relevant to the topic selected.
Elaborating a Wiki might sound complicated, even though, it is not that hard. Certainly, Wikis are tools that can contribute in any educational process. Something that really called my attention was the fact that no matter how structured the process was, there was always a gate to innovate. In others words, the use of Wikis as a mediation activity does not restrict the way that students develop each one of their projects. Besides, if we take into account the matter that the information and steps are shown, we could infer that the process would be in charge of the teacher and this would be the one who plays the main role but it is not. The information is presented sequentially; as a result, the students use each step to reach the next stage of the project in order to get full credit. In my opinion, the steps are used as a guide by the students, no more than that. Once students get involved in their project, they obtain a bunch of possibilities. To illustrate these words, the author suggest that “Early implementations of wikis in educational settings have shown that the more autonomy teacher give to students in terms of negotiations the scope and quality of the content they are creating the better.” (p. 61) As we can notice, the process should be well prepared by considering all factors involve in the project and also it should have the chance to students to provide something that they can create by themselves.
ReplyDelete• I would use Wikis to assign research projects. I would divide the whole class in subgroups with the intention of gathering information about a specific topic. Then each group should complete certain steps like description of situations, formulation of hypothesis, elaboration of essays, and so on. I would ask for an oral presentation in order to show the results of the research (all stipulated in a rubric chart).
• I would use Wikis as a final project. The idea is to select one topic covered during the classes with the intention of being an expert for a day. Each student must follow all the steps raised in the Wiki to get enough information to present the topic to the class during 10 minutes.
With the implementation of wikis in the English lessons, the development of the instruction takes a very different turn. Behind all the collaborative work and original production, it is necessary to keep in mind that every person has something to add and something to share. As mentioned in Chapter 4( Wikis: Easy Collaboration for All ) page 63, “ It´s a great opportunity to introduce students to the concepts of open-source software, community collaboration, respect for others people´s ideas, intellectual property and public domain and much more.” In my lessons, the use of a wiki could help me a lot in the presentation and practice periods because in these stages students´ participation and involvement are essential. I ´d ask students to develop some exercises and task-oriented projects, for example in the topic of foods, I´d ask them to elaborate a restaurant´s menu,a shopping list for the christmas dinner, or even thier own version of a common recipe; in order to assess their proficiency and organization of ideas. This means that we can facilitate not only the learning of a language but also the capacity to be part of a big team communicating with each other.
ReplyDelete