Wiki Update

Now that we have completely finished one wiki project, I am happy to reflect on the experience. I thought that the wiki medium was a very interesting way to teach writing; however, because this was my first time teaching with it and using the technology, I felt that we spent most of the time just trying to get comfortable with using the wiki itself. I believe that the technology can help the kids get engaged in writing, but first they have to learn how to use the technology at all. I know that the kind ladies who came in to talk to us about how easy it is for kids to blog and write on wikis meant well, but with 7th graders in a lower income area (it's not tough to find a lower income area THAN EDINA), there really does exist a digital divide, not just a broadband divide. If seventh graders do have a computer, they are heavily regulated as to their use, and they are 12, so regulation still works. So, they aren't as active on facebook as we adults might believe, and as a result, part of teaching digital writing means teaching the "digital" part. 

That said, now that the kids know how to use the technology, I am going to attempt another wiki writing project. For my low track class, we will be focusing only on writing content and adding pictures to individual pages. For my regular track class, we will be writing and using inspiration on the wiki pages. And, last but not least, for my honors class, we will be writing and creating podcasts using audacity and posting them on the wiki pages. I like the idea of a wiki as something that the kids can use so that they can write for a larger audience, as opposed to writing just for me. I still don't know quite how to hammer it home that audience should affect writing, but we are also going to work on that this time. We are going to look at examples of good and bad websites, and hopefully the kids will get that mistakes in grammar and spelling and boring design lower the credibility of websites. 

All in all, I am enjoying the wiki technology, and I look forward to using it more in the future.