In the classroom
From Science Online
Contents |
Signing up for an account
Simply click the log in/create account link and then choose to "create an account."
Your students will need to create their own accounts and add themselves to your class once you have set it up. (For their privacy and protection, we ask that students create user names that DO NOT resemble their real names and that they never include any personally identifying information on the site. Please remind them!)
Why use a wiki in my class?
Wikis support collaborative writing in a way that no other technology does. By allowing for radically open collaboration among students, teachers, and people in other settings, wikis provide a space that can cross the usual boundaries of the classroom. If you are interested in collaborative writing activities, wikis can allow your students to work together from school, home, the library, and other places. They do not require special software (just an Internet connection and a web browser).
Best of all, when students use a wiki, there is a real audience for their work. Papers no longer "die on the teacher's desk"; instead, they become living documents that can be extended and discussed by future classes and students in other places. By providing students with a real audience for their work, web publication provides an authentic context for writing-to-learn about science.
What exactly is a wiki?
A wiki is simply a website where each page is editable by clicking on an "edit" button right on the site. In addition, wikis are easily extensible spaces because editors can create new pages simply by adding a new link. Wiki documents are truly collaborative in that they allow authors to work on the same text.
How is a wiki different from a blog?
Blogs are another kind of collaborative website that is usually organized chronologically. In general, blog posts only have one author, so they are more conducive to personal reflections and discussion than collaborative writing. Note that wiki pages can also be used much like a blog if content on the page is organized around individual posts and comments.
How can I use this site with students?
The goal of using Science Online with high school classes is to provide students with a real context for writing about science. Science Online is an ideal tool for supporting collaborative research papers about science, but you can use Science Online to support many kinds of assignments. We only ask that you don't ask students to do work that conflicts with the goal of creating a science resource.
By asking students to think about the audience for their work, you create an opportunity to connect science content to life outside the classroom. On Science Online, we also encourage extensive citation and source evaluation. By asking authors to provide evaluations of the resources they use to inform their writing, we believe we can encourage more critical consumption of information online and elsewhere.
Assignments
You can see what kinds of assignments teachers are assigning in their classes in the Assignments Browser.
The wiki science encylopedia context is not ideal for all kinds of assignments. For example, lab reports, which are highly routine and similar across students and across classes, are a poor fit. However, analysis of lab work that can support a science article would be appropriate. For example, as part of an article about an ecosystem in a particular river, an environmental science teacher could use the site to collect data over several semesters worth of classes.
The following basic assignment structure is recommended for basic research papers, but you can use Science Online as you see fit:
- Create a userpage
Remind students that they should create usernames that do not resemble their real names and that are appropriate for a school site. Creating a personal userpage allows students to get to know the technology and create a public profile. INFORM STUDENTS THAT THEY SHOULD NEVER PUBLISH PERSONAL INFORMATION IN AN ONLINE SPACE. Student userpages should be restricted to information like favorite movies, school subjects, etc. Students should not upload photos of themselves. Science Online is personalizable, but it is not a social networking site. - Form groups
Because wikis provide a fundamentally collaborative medium for writing, it is recommended that students work in groups. - Choose a topic/question that interests your group
Within the constraints of the course topic, students can choose a topic of their own or from a list of pre-approved topics that you select. There is also a questions page for collecting questions that may provide some ideas. The best articles tend to be fairly specific topics that start with driving research questions. Students can be encouraged to fill in more general information on articles that are related to their own topics as they go. - Collect resources about your topic and annotate them
As students read up on their topic, they should enter the resources they find into the site-wide bibliography either by adding it to the page where they will write their main article or by adding it to their own user page. Remind students not to enter a resource twice if it already exists in the system. Once a resource is entered into the site, a page is created for it where editors can evaluate the resource. Students can be asked to provide evaluations/annotations as they go.If you choose to integrate lab or field work, you may also want to ask students to use original data to support their articles.
- Start drafting your article right away
No need to wait! Students who start outlining and drafting early tend to get in more revision cycles. - Peer review and revisions
Students can provide peer reviews for other groups' articles and then revise based on those reviews and on your feedback. REMEMBER THAT FEEDBACK ON A WIKI IS PUBLIC. Students should be encouraged to be constructively critical at all times to avoid an intimidating atmosphere. Wikis are always a work in progress. It is important that students understand their articles will not be perfect and room for improvement is an expected outcome. Each page has a "discussion" tab at the top where it is appropriate to talk about the content of the page. In addition, each student has a "talk" page where personal (but public) messages can be left.
Assessment
The Teacher Tools page provides information about each student in your class. There are links to view each student's editing history as well as a bibliography of all the resources added and used by that student.
Students in your class will have the option of tagging pages that they work on for the assignments that you create. If they tag a page for that assignment, then the page will show up on your teacher tools under that assignment. (Once tagged, it will also show up for other students who have collaborated on that page.) This allows you to quickly find each students' work for assessment.
Where can I practice editing the site?
In the Sandbox you can create pages and try out different formatting techniques. See the page on editing for more help.
You may also want to create a userpage. We prefer that you do not publicize your school on your userpage. This is one way that we keep students' information private--the general public cannot see which schools students attend. We need your cooperation to protect students' information.
More resources about wikis in schools
Using wiki in education a teacher blog written by Stewart Mader and: [1]
