I understand it from an administrator’s perspective. You’re talking about something that students, teachers, experts, anyone can edit. You’re talking about easy, free access to the world’s largest and ever-growing encyclopedia. You’re talking about something that could be as wildly inaccurate as it is helpful to student research. And even the wiki half of wikipedia aside, students don’t tend to understand that an encyclopedia isn’t a good resource for papers and such and whatnot. By all logic, it sounds like Wikipedia should be blocked. Why let students have access to something that’s only going to give them a broad understand, which may or may not be accurate, and which isn’t really something they should be using anyway? Why let them do something that’s only really harmful, sometimes comes up wrong, and sometimes comes up with nothing at all?

Let’s burn the print encyclopedias while we’re at it. After all, they’re also only a broad overview, and not a source students should really be using, right?

Sorry, that got overly cynical. And I do understand that wikipedia isn’t the best source in the world, that it has flaws, and that no, an encyclopedia of any kind should be avoided when a research paper is on the line.

My main argument for why wikipedia should be accessible from schools, and available for student use, is that it is no different from the book or other print encyclopedias, whose use is encouraged. While wikipedia can be changed by anyone, it’s also incredibly self-healing. while print books are certainly not. While a print source may need to be peer reviewed, who defines peer, and who picks what peers review what? Isn’t it a less biased source if the “peers” who review it are anyone, from anywhere in the world? And, yeah, wikipedia does contain links to articles that students probably shouldn’t read. But I have a guess that a lot of this info is in those print books, too.

So what compromises can be made? Maybe wikipedia searches can run under the same filter that google searches do, to prevent students from ending up in inappropriate pages. Wikipedia has a very simple web address structure, so any page title containing a forbidden word could easily be excluded, even when linking around in wikipedia. Second, students DO need to be taught that wikipedia is a source for learning, not a source for citing in a paper. Wikipedia, and other encyclopedias as well, need to be taught as “common knowledge,” even if the knowledge isn’t actually all that common. And, keeping in mind that students CAN easily edit wikipedia, maybe they should be taught to read articles with a critical eye, to consider whether or not the information is reviewd, cited, and reliable, before they take it as gospel. Doesn’t that push students into more and more research anyway?

Considering students can go home and get in wikipedia with no restrictions, it seems like futile effort to restrict students use of it at school. Why not embrace the technology, and teach students to use it right, instead of covering their eyes?

Enjoy, and comment

I narrated the first bit, about the movie, Courtney did the second and third slides, and Ashley did the last one

The things Dr. Tyson was able to do with Mabry are incredble. I can’t believe that middle schoolers were able to make those films. Makes me a little wary of making my own film >_< I’m just amazed at all of it.

What shocks me a little more, though, is how when Dr. Tyson left, the school reverted to a crappy website, no more podcasts, no more film festival, nothing. Did the teachers hate it? Did the new principal hate it? Did the students fail to learn anything through that method of teaching? I’d be curious to know… but I personally like the technological approach to things. I can safely say I’ve learned more from the internet than I did in middle school. Sure, Mrs. Daughtry taught me how to…uh…We read The Outsiders, anyway. But the internet? At the same time as I was learning A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I was learning HTML and CSS, and dabbling in PHP. My website, which is highly embarassing, is more meaningful to me than most of the schoolwork I’ve done. I wonder if that would change if I had used some web2.0 tools…which is a great segway!!!!

Scratch is a pretty freaking cool site. Allowing people to make their own widgety games or interactive whatnots without having to beat a large book with “C++” written on it over their heads? Very, very cool. Yes, the programmer in me cringes at the amount of buggy code those things generate, but you have to start somewhere. Even I started with a page generator, and figured out webdesign from there. I think these types of websites could be that launching point.

If you can get students interested in a topic, get the passionate, get them to care, all of a sudden it becomes learning on their own terms. I love that idea. And websites like these allow students to be creative in projects without them having to use skills they already have (like programming). If a kid thinks something would make a good flash game, they can do it, just like that (I’m snapping.) Things like this really offer freedom to students to be creative, to use all the tools their brain can think of. And I’m fond of that

Your kitten:

I love the idea of using tools like this in the classroom. It’s something students can relate to, it’s fun, it’s interactive, it gets their attention and can hold it, and you come away feeling like you’ve created something. Especially with sites like TimeRime and Museum Box, where you can actually make a school project online. Who needs pen and paper! We’ll put Elmer’s out of business!!
I see some issues, though. First, I’m doubtful that many high school classrooms are going to have a computer available to every student on a daily basis. Does this work as well if the teacher is just demoing it from the front of the room? Does it work as well in partners, if those computers are available? Can I assign it for homework and, assuming I don’t get beaten up for assuming everyone has a computer at home, can I expect students to do it? Lots of things to talk about.

Of course, another way these could be used might be as a launching point for a physical project. Students might build an actual cube or an actual timeline, and then use that to point to the online, interactive version. That could be fun – possibly more middle school than high school, but still.

Oh! I just thought of another one for Wordle. Students could copypasta articles from a newspaper or from online and look for keywords that might indicate bias. Courtney just had a word cloud up on her screen that had “iraq” and “success” as the biggest words. Call me crazy, but I’m betting there’s some kind of bias in that block of text. I think that c0uld be very interesting…

I love tools like this. I love things that you can plug yourself into and analyze your writing. I saw one online before that would guess if you were male or female based on your writing. Here’s a great bombshell to end on: When I put in fiction I’ve written, I’m resoundingly female. When I put in an essay, though? The machine tells me I’m male

I started out life as a bit of a technophobe, probably inherited from my mom, who stopped looking at new technology around 1985. Her word processor was incredible, a typewriter got the job done, and the card catalogue was simply the best way to find something in the library. Although I never use those anymore (I don’t even think most libraries have card catalogues anymore) I like that I know how to use them. Minor tangent there… But relevant, I think, to the whole idea of media literacy.

Our world can no longer be contained in a card catalogue, no matter how small the type and how much sneezing can throw you off. With all the media out there, everything available for perusal, it’s almost overwhelming. One of my teachers in another class mentioned that Shakespeare lived and wrote in the last time it was possible to read everything that was published. That was the 17th century. Imagine how far it’s come in 400 years…and imagine the explosion in the last 40 years. If you set out now to read all of wikipedia, would you ever be able to stop because of the constant editing, expanding, and revision?

Media literacy in school, then. It’s a daunting task. Students a hundred years ago learned everything from books and hands on. Students now are going to walk into class with a world of video, music, music video, commercial, advertisement, print, urbandictionary, wikipedia, youtube, 4chan, all in their heads. A teacher has to be able to keep up, or at least cope, with this mass of media. How is black and white text going to compare to a full color video, full screen, widescreen, hi-def, blueray, ps3? It’s almost like a fight – we future teachers sure are gonna have our hands full!

Because Shakespeare is often something students find inaccessible, we thought that using technology to bring the play into this century would really help students grasp the concepts better, and to just relate to the story in general. Racism is a major issue in the play, and since it’s still a big deal today, we thought that was the perfect launching point for this project.

So, without further ado, the video!

And without further further ado (about nothing…ba-dum-CHING!), our project assignment sheet and rationale!

Racism and Social Phobias

Enjoy!

(edit: I can’t seem to make stupid wordpress attach the file to the post, so I’ve linked to it. It’s uploaded to my own website.)

I really enjoyed reading the article. I thought it gave incredible meaning to this class, because I have never thought about using just a normal website as a text for a class until now. I get using technology to help students learn, but I had never thought about analyzing something like the SlimJim site before. I mentioned in my earlier post that I think websites teenagers frequent are dependent and thrive off of user submitted content – things like forums, tagboards, FML, etc. I popped over to check out the SlimJim site, and big shocker – the first thing you see is urging you to sign up and participate! I think that sort of thing really appeals to teenagers.

The idea of using websites like this as a text for the  class is actually kinda exciting to me. It really adds a layer of reality to the class – we’re not looking at the school-filtered websites, or going to the address that the teacher copypasta’d onto the worksheet and doing a “scavenger hunt” (most boring assingment EVAR)… We’re really looking at something that students might interact with. We’re not teaching them the internet, they already know that, we’re just embracing it. And how better to make a student care about your class, than for you to care about them in the first place?

http://www.neopets.com

http://www.lissaexplains.com

http://www.nick.com

http://addictinggames.com

Well, that’s all I can think of that I’m willing to post up here, but I’m noticing something about this post – all those websites are really geared towards kids, not teenagers. They’re obviously for kids, too – bright colors, loud graphics, games and interactive things. Very easy to use, more clicking, less typing. Always some element of a game to it.

But websites for teenagers? Damn. The things teenagers look at online are a world apart from what kids do. I’m thinking things like icanhascheezburger, urbandictionary, forums and message boards, and of course (DO NOT GO TO THIS SITE) 4chan. The sites for teenagers are more writing, not so much on the thinking, and double-the-dram-double-the-fun. I don’t think websites geared towards teenagers are going to be put out there by big corporations like the websites for kids will be (like the gushers website, for example), but I think that teenagers are more intent on creating their own content for websites. Dollz websites, for example. They’re a huge thing with teenage girls. Can you imagine a 14 year old girl with bloodshot eyes and her nose an inch away from the computer, muttering “but I put img src. Why isn’t my code working? Did I miss a semicolon somewhere? Miss a class? Do I need to absolutely position that Div layer? Does it validate!? WHY WON’T IT VALIDATE!”

Yeah, that seems weird to me too, but it seems like that’s what they’re doing. And forums, and tagboards. I think harnessnig the power of the internet might be a way for teenagers to see themselves make an impact on something. After all, moot won.

Yeah, neither did I. But now I do, thanks to my English Ed class!

Short story is that it’s what a jellyfish stings you with. Long story is that I’m learning the strengths and weaknesses of printed encyclopedias, wikipedia, and britannica online.

Personally, I’ve always loved Wikipedia because I think it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It tells you what something is! I think a lot of students have issues with the idea that an encyclopedia isn’t a source. They question the idea that something they didn’t already know, like the general overview an encyclopedia will give, is actually “common knowledge” in a research paper. They freak out when you tell them that they have to use other sources that dig a little deeper!! I know I did, anyway.

But Wikipedia is different. It’s something students are gonna get a basic overview, and then, instead of the daunting process of going out and starting the whole new process of research, you get links on Wikipedia RIGHT THERE that explain where everything is sourced. And because Wiki is constantly changing and self editing, I think it’s really cool that if a student finds something in their research that may invalidate wikipedia, they can change it! They have the power!

Plus, everyone KNOWS wikipedia may or may not be reliable source. (I once read the article on Twilight, which explained that Bella and Jacob have a baby, and name it Jellob. That was edited out the next day.) So I think a student is less tempted to use it as a source and more tempted to research further and find out what’s true and what’s not.

Another advantage of Wikipedia is that it can be lengthened so much easier than a printed encyclopedia. Those have to go through many multiple editions for something to end up as a really long article, and what if the writers and editors really don’t care about nematocysts? Then you don’t get an article. But wikipedia, man! Someone can pop in and add more information and suddenly you know more about nematocycsts than you ever thought you would!! That’s cool to me. And if you post up that nematocycsts are the cosmic force responsible for popcorn and cotton candy, then someone can pop in behind you and edit that out. You know those stories you hear about censorship and revisionist history? not possible with Wikipedia. Anyone from any country can come in and edit it. And an archive is kept!

We’re talking in class right now about what belongs in an encyclopedia. With a print encyclopedia, you really do have to edit down what’s there, but with Wikipedia, UNLIMITED SPACE! You can legthen articles, add more, change it around, make it include things. I mean, I bet you thought that French author was totally normal, Liz and Sarah! But now you know all of his weirdicies. I think that IS something that needst t0 be alongside this guy, because it obviously affected who he was and probably changed his writing.

And if it didn’t belong? Then it can be edited out, deleted, moved. Wikipedia is constantly changing, and even though it’s not perfect, neither is the printed encyclopedia. I would much rather have something that self-edits like Wikipedia, than I would put my ideas in the hands of one author, one dude, one scholar on the subject. I want to know EVERYONE’S opinion, and where it came from.

Maybe I’m a wikipedia fangirl, but if I am, so what! It’s the wave of the future!

(PS: I don’t like Brittanica online. I don’t even know if I’m spelling it right. But it has all the problems with a traditional encyclopedia, and ads encouraging you to buy their service. Sorry, but information should be free.)

Your kitten!