Unsolved Mysteries Wiki

The fifth graders are in the process of completing their Unsolved Mysteries Wiki We read a book this fall called Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. The book explores a mystery surrounding Johann Vermeer. The research on Unsolved Mysteries was loosely connected to the book. The kids spent 3-4 weeks doing their research, completing citations, and finding images. They put the wiki together and are almost finished with links and images. I am in total agreement with Jamie McKenzie's ideas about Ending Topical Research. He says:

When students conduct topical research, they do little more than scoop up information. Topical research requires little thinking and little imagination. It pays few dividends. It does almost nothing to prepare students for the kinds of thinking skills listed in state and provincial curriculum standards.

But, I wanted content to teach them about wikis, and topical research was easy. I'm hoping before I retire to do a "real" project using a wiki. Let me know if you've got a good idea for a wiki-collaboration.

Wikis for Elementary Students

My gifted sixth grade students did their first wiki quite by accident. Background: We had finished reading a book called The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett. The book is Balliett's second novel for kids, the first one is called Chasing Vermeer. All in all I love the way the books are written; they are filled with historical connections, math puzzles, codes and ciphers, like D'Vinci Code for kids. The plots are not as strong as I'd like and the mysteries are easily solved at the end of the books but the kids seemed to like them. I wrote curriculum for each book and students learned a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright and Johannes Vermeer.

Back to the wiki...I had planned for my sixth grade students to write a reflection essay on the book and what they had learned about Frank Lloyd Wright. The night before they were to start that assignment, I decided that they would hate it! We'd started a blog several months ago and in my researching of Web 2.0 technologies I'd run in to wikis and knew what they were. I decided, after I'd turned off my computer for the night, that they would love to do a wiki.

I got up early the next morning, went to school, cranked up my computer and in 30 minutes had the skeleton of the wiki ready. Several cautions: At the time I didn't realize that each student would have to "join"so there was a scramble to get everyone signed up. I use Wikispaces and they will set up accounts for all your students if you email them. I was savvy enough to realize that if students worked in pairs, each one would have to have a separate page. Two kids can't open the same page, work on it and save it. Notes are taken on two separate pages then combined on one page for final publishing.

I showed them Wikipedia and we did searches on chicken nuggets and Super Mario I could tell they were hooked right away! They loved all the connections. We discussed copyright, looked at Wikipedia's copyright (which I really like), and talked about notetaking and plagiarism. Then I set them loose!

Since I teach in a gifted pullout program the students are with us all day one day a week. In about five hours the seventeen kids finished the wiki on The Wright 3 and Frank Lloyd Wright. They really enjoyed it. Here are some of their comments:

“Boy, I’m glad we didn’t have to write!” (hello….you just spent the whole day writing!!)
“It is so cool to know that somebody might use what I wrote for their research!!”
“I write a lot more carefully knowing the ‘world’ can read it”
“I liked the fact that we could work together, help each other out and link to stuff someone else wrote”
“It is so cool to put something ON the Internet, rather than always taking stuff OFF.”

Let me know if you have any questions. We are in the process of completing two more wikis now.

Too Little Time; Too Much to Do

I posted the following comment to a discussion on David Warwick's site 2 Cents Worth. The comment from Randy Rodgers led me to think about "time" and people's frustration about adoption or non-adoption of certain technologies in the classroom.

Last year I heard Christopher Paolini interviewed on 60 Minutes. Christopher wrote an 800 page fantasy called Eragon, recently released on film at the theaters. He was 15 years old when he wrote the book and he said, in the interview “The gift my parents gave me, by homeschooling, was the gift of time.” I think that’s what missing in the whole “blog/wiki in the classroom” discussion. With NCLB and state assessments students no longer have “time” in the classroom. In our district the last thing students have time to do is something as spontaneous as sitting down to write what is on their mind. (hyperbole, I’m sure) The beauty of what I do, teach in a pullout gifted program, is that we have the time to think and explore areas of interest and new technologies. I also teach kiddos who have supportive parents and computers at home. There is no doubt that many, if not all, students would enjoy blogging and benefit from writing for a “real” audience. OK, finished rambling about that.
The same holds true for doing wikis. We did our first one in lieu of a reflection essay and 17 6th graders worked for 5 hours to complete it. Teachers in my building, a Title 1 school, would never find the time. They are required to teach reading for 2 1/2 and math for 1 1/2 hours a day. A sad state of affairs.

What barriers do you see to adoption of blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 technologies in the general ed classroom?