Wikis

Our class was recently given an input to complete our wikispaces in groups. This input was the most surprising to me so far within the elective. This was because my usual state of frustration wasn't the case as I found the task somewhat tedious however not difficult. It was in fact the rest of the class who were becoming frustrated and it was unusual for me to see the opposite of what usually goes on in ICT. The fact this happens makes me wonder whether it was just my mood that day or whether the task was more suited to my style of learning. This makes me think about the challenges of teaching any subject in any age group in any school as pupils would need to find something they can co-operate with and the differences among children mean that they will find different things to co-operate with. The teacher's job is to assist and encourage the engagement in a certain aspect of the child's education. Helping each child find what works for them could prove difficult but rewarding in my career.

The wikispaces themselves were fine in my opinion, although there were some problems with images and the main cause of annoyance was the fact that moving the pictures around while editing did not result in the same position on the wikispace. Also, some pictures did not show up after editing and only using public domain images was limiting. Overall, I found making the wiki simple and I do think that it is a good resource for classrooms as it is a more engaging method of displaying information than handing out fact sheets or booklets.

Furthering classroom use by making class run wikis could benefit pupils' learning experience, however I feel I would need experience through trial and error with a class of my own to feel confident in this.
Richardson (2006) explains that, 'In using wikis, students are not only learning how to publish content; they are also learning how to develop and use all sorts of collaborative skills, negotiating with others to agree on correctness, meaning, relevance, and more. In essence, students begin to teach each other.' (p.65)
I feel that this statement is just as it is the process I have been through working on my wiki and working in my group/pair in general.