On the 2009 K12 Online Conference, I viewed Paula White’s presentation Parallel Play or Collaboration–Leveraging the Wiki Platform for High Quality Work.
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=576
Since I am intrigued with using wikis in my classroom, this session caught my eye. I found the presentation and supplemental material to be valuable for my professional learning and for its application to my classroom.
There were links upon links of information that could be useful to me as a teacher and to my students. The following is a link to just such a resource. The first is a link the the livebinder site, the second is a link to a specific livebinder. Make sure to take note of the tabs at the top. Once you click on a tab, notice the links that appear under each tab. These are nifty. I’m already thinking of binders that I can create.
http://livebinders.com/welcome
http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=18793
Ms. While opens the discussion not only on how we use wikis in the classroom but why we use wikis in the classroom. In other words, our metacognitive process in creating and using a wiki. One of the defining ideas is…what is the difference between cooperation and collaboration?? She points out that we often use these words interchangeably, but especially as related to web 2.o they are not the same.
My illustration of the difference between cooperation and collaboration involves a holiday meal. At holidays I would often find myself in the kitchen, alone, making all the dishes for the meal, while everyone else (three sons and a husband) would be in the family room having fun. Wanting to be part of the family room fun, I decided to divvy the dishes. So each son & I picked a dish we were responsible for, and we all worked in the kitchen making our individual dishes. We had fun and we were finished in one quarter of the time that it would have taken me by myself…..cooperation…doing. Then, we moved on to making sweet potato casserole and everyone had ideas about what to put in it…..cinnamon, no vanilla…… marshmallow topping, no pecan crunch, no Rice Krispies….collaboration…creating.
Ms. White gave wonderful guiding questions as you think about a wiki for your classroom…is it
- a path to self directed learning?
- a path to collaboration?
- a path to pushing traditional school tasks online, helping students learn about wikis, webpages, and how to create them?
All valid but with different focuses.
Something I have noticed in myself and with my colleagues through Learning web 2.o and which Ms. White points out is that we need to get over not wanting people to mess with our stuff. Web 2.o is all about people “messing” with other people’s “stuff”….it’s about collaboration.
(as a side note…the actual video was some blurred version of the presentation, which made it difficult to follow visually. So I opened the Paula White’s wiki, which she used throughout the presentation. I could follow along in the parts of the wiki while she was talking.)
I wish I had thought to open the wiki and follow along as you did. I was taking notes while I was listening to the presentation, but it was hard since I couldn’t see the words. I went back and opened her wiki after the presentation. Thanks for your very thorough reflection on the content of her presentation.