Module Ten - Learning Communities, Constructing Knowledge Together in Wikis

First let’s start with WIKI’S! Wiki’s are fabulous tools that I have seen been used with the children at my school in upper primary. Anything to do with using the internet children seem to be able to use however, building and developing wiki’s has made the learning for these children so much more engaging and enjoyable.

I like that it is a collaborative approach that children are able to add and edit information and it is not one child’s ownership of a project. Recently, Year 6 created wiki’s based on their political party that they’d developed. It really allowed the group to show what they’d learnt and also all the different ways that they can use technology and put it into this great document. Like the camping list, it allowed the students to add what they knew and developed a collaboration of work. After looking at Larissa Cunningham’s blog I liked her suggestion of using wiki’s a means to create a class story where children can add and edit the story. I also liked her suggestion of using it as a homework task so that children can add their suggestions to make a class list. Wiki’s have great value in an upper primary and high school classroom; I would love to hear other people’s suggestions as to how I could use them in infants.

Now to the question: How can Web 2.0 assist in improving learning outcomes for all students?

When children are engaged in their learning we all know that they thrive and really show their potential. I know as an infant’s teacher the children love to play on the computer. They are starting to teach themselves how to use specific tool that are useful to their learning like accessing the internet, searching and copying and pasting information. As for the Web 2.0 tools they have a great expansive use in upper primary and high school years. The children generally teach themselves how to use these tools and are able to teach me a few things. The web 2.0 tools can allow the children to showcase what they’ve learnt or show their gradual learning development over the course of the unit. Digital stories like podcast, vodcasts etc allow children to develop such skills as comprehension and vocabulary as they have the time to listen or watch and learn. They can replay, and watch things again to clarify their understanding. Web 2.0 tools is allowing the next generations of adult become more socially connected, organised and consistent with tools like Google Docs, and Flickr.

We can’t go backwards with technology so I think as an adult community we need to join the children as learners and keep up with the ever growing, ever changing world or technology.