Wikis

At the beginning of the year I took part in the PoLT survey and interview process and, as expected, identified that I needed to work on my teaching and learning of ICT or multiliteracies. This was quite timely as the staff inquiry for term three at Sunshine Primary was Multiliteracies. My principal, Teresa Stone, had spent some time searching the [|epotential resource] and stumbled across the idea of a wiki to demonstrate and publish student learning. We had a number of chats and online discussions about the ways we could use a wiki with our students. To learn more about my wiki journey, check out my wiki page on the Sunshine PS Multiliteracies Wiki or check out the wiki links below to see how it translated into my grade 5/6 classroom throughout term three and four.

It started with the 5/6D wiki We were already starting to conduct research for our information reports. Our inquiry for the term focussed on Political Systems, in particular Democracy. Students had a number of books to choose from that related to a range of topics; political leaders, political conflict, political systems, origins and history of politics, Australian government and political issues. We decided that we would publish our reports online and create our own political encyclopedia. We used the topics listed earlier as our wiki pages to start us off. It was fantastic watching the kids just run with it. I had spent days researching and building and their knowledge and skill had surpassed mine within minutes of logging on to wikispaces.

We spent some time make charts that compared standard information reports; text books, newspapers, and websites. We analysed and compared the common features using a venn diagram and used this information to create an evaluation rubric to guide our wiki presentation.

Then came our class learning journey The kids were so engaged in the wiki as a tool to publish and research. I started to work with Teresa on the idea of learning stories. She taught me how to use learning stories as a tool for student reflection. As a class we completed a plan of our term three learning journey and then developed a template to help us turn each of these stages into a wiki page in a class learning journey. It was a trial and worked pretty well. In hindsight, there were incomplete pages and some other issues of privacy that I needed to work on and explore with the students, but overall it was a fantastic learning experience that led to many others.

We started to collaborate and share our learning My students had been partnered up with some e-pals from St Albans Heights PS. Their teacher, Hannah Schedlich, had heard of an English Language School in Japan that were seeking short and simple texts from student in Australia. We had applied for funding to have our students work in their partnerships to write, publish and record a collection of these stories. Unfortunately, we didn't receive the funding but I did have the idea that our students could collaborate online to produce drafts and published versions of their stories without having to transport from school to school. We started this wiki, which was great. We will be meeting in mid-November to do final publishing, illustrating and recording of the narratives.

The kids took control As our Government Inquiry went on the kids turned our classroom into the nation of Dougland. They held elections and referendums, divided the nation into electorates, created political parties and policies, and formed an economy. The party in power asked if I could create a wikispace for them and what came from there was phenomenal. They built an interactive wiki that was used by all members of my class. A majority of the work was done voluntarily outside of class time.

Some went even further At the end of the inquiry, students were asked to share their learning or present a message in some kind of digital presentation. A couple of individual students chose to do this through a wiki. This was fantastic. They discovered widgets and got so creative with the presentation of the wiki pages.

We did some team teaching to spread the word In late term three, the grade 5/6 classes began team teaching in the Multiliteracies Learning Centre (MLC). Two grades would work together at a time. The students shared their expertise. My class teaching the other students how to build wikis, the other two grades sharing their skills in movie maker and edcube. As a team, the 5/6 teachers had been working on introducing the Habits of Mind to Sunshine PS. We are working towards a forum for the community in term four and plan to launch this student created wiki at the forum.

We formed expert panels Sunshine PS established a working relationship with a number of schools from the Hume Region. John Spencer is a grade 2/3/4 teacher at Peranbin Primary College, in Violet Town. John had already been working with wiki's and we now have a panel of experts from my grade sharing their expertise and feedback with John's students through their term four wiki based on their own inquiry.

Now we are using them to show our learning My students are currently in the process of building individual learning journeys on the pages of our new class wiki. They are using page plans formally used for our class learning journey and have developed a new evaluation rubric to suit our learning needs.