Teachers, overcome your technophobia!

Teachers! Overcome your technophobia! A guide to using Wikis in MFL Alex Blagona Language College Coordinator Northgate High School, Ipswich 2nd November 2008 www.northgatemfl.co.uk [email_address]

Is this the future?
“ Young people’s familiarity with ICT offers a great opportunity to language teachers. It seems to us that a determined commitment to use this world, which is so familiar to young people, is a key to increasing the engagement of young people of all ages with languages. New technologies can facilitate real contacts with schools and young people in other countries. They can also provide stimulus for creative and interactive work .”
(Lord Dearing - Languages Review March 2007)

Can we keep up with the kids?

What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content.

Better than a VLE?
A wiki is ideal for small class projects.
A closer community, working together.
Allows contributors control over the page.
Easier to maintain than a VLE.
Not as ‘clunky’

Benefits of a wiki?
All changes are to all pages are recorded.
Access can be restricted or opened up.
Each page has a discussion page.
Any mistakes (or acts of vandalism!) can be quickly undone!

What to consider when starting a wiki?
Purpose
Audience
Content
Why are we doing this? What would you use it for? Who is going to bother reading it? Students? Colleagues? The wider community? What do we put on it? Resources? Ideas? Students’ work?

How do we use a wiki?
Sharing good ideas and resources.
Raising awareness of MFL across the school (and beyond!)
Getting students to assess each other’s work.
Giving students an opportunity to be creative!

Using a wiki to get your students working together In MFL we can use ‘wikis’ to get students to create, share, correct and discuss their work with each other in a secure and personalised environment. We can bring together learners, and create a place for learning irrespective of geographical location.

What are the problems?
Keeping it up to date.
Technology over Teaching?
Getting students (and teachers!) to use it.
Making it a focus for learning.
Overcoming fears and concerns.

Are the students safe?
Students only use first names
Never give out email addresses
Never give out home addresses
Never give out telephone numbers
Always respect others
Do not use rude or threatening words
Do not use text talk or chat language
Do not copy other people’s work
You will be responsible for everything you write

What’s so good about it?
Creativity and global citizenship.
It’s not new for pupils who use Bebo/MySpace/Facebook.
Helps subject to be more relevant to kids.
It’s quite simple to use.
Writing for a purpose (real audience) increases standards at all levels - it’s real communication.
Allows for peer assessment through comments in a safe environment - electronic form of assessment for learning.
It’s FREE for educators.

OUR VERY FIRST PAGE! Welcome to the Y12 French 'wiki'. A wiki is a web page that anyone can edit or change. What is the point of having one? Well, not only is learning French about what you can pick up in lessons, it's also about being able to learn from each other. That does not mean copying, but it means working together and helping each other, and sharing ideas, so that we ALL can learn from each other. For the next week or two these pages will be open so that anyone can use them, but when you get the hang of it, I'll secure them so that they are yours and can't be messed up. In the next few weeks we'll be using the wiki to do a few things as a group. It might be preparing a debate, analysing a text - why spend all night looking up every word when if we divide it up into sections it can be done a lot quicker!

What makes wikis remarkable?
Anyone can add, edit, or delete a page.
Users control the design and organisation of the wiki.
On most wikis, what you write is more important than how it looks.

Wiki as a collaboration tool
Students like the ability to collaborate.
Students need help organising collaborative writing projects.
Wiki management is ideally controlled by the students, but monitored by the teachers.
Students need to develop wiki-skills - but it is a great way to aid independent study.
The “history” and “recent changes” tools can help with assessing participation

Wiki as information pool/resource
Students can create learning materials!
Wikis allow a variety of authorship/ownership combinations.
Wikis break down the dynamics of traditional writing assignments.
Gives learners ownership of resources and contributions.
Wikis can expand both the audience and the participants in writing projects.
Plagiarism can be an issue.

“ What I like best about the Wiki”
“ The chance to be creative was great - and it’s better than just writing it - we could put whatever we wanted on there (pictures, responses, content).”
“ I like to see my classmates’ work. It was also fun to see [their] comments on my work.”
“ Seeing some of the phrases used in people’s essays made me want to make my essay better.”
“ It gives you a chance to feel part of a group - we can learn from the rest of the group - and it makes sure you do your homework.”
“ I liked the flexibility a lot.”

Wiki-ed Examples!

New, corrected text in green, deleted text in red.

Editing your wiki…

Useful examples of MFL wikis edgehill-spanish.wikispaces.com northgatemfl.wikispaces.com irsdeutsch.wikispaces.com langwitch.wikispaces.com

www.wikispaces.com
www.pbwiki.com
www.northgatemfl.co.uk
Want to create a wonderful wiki?

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Teachers, overcome your technophobia!

by Alex Blagona on Nov 02, 2008

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