The most effective way to engage my students is to give them something anyone can access anywhere. Wiki’s make this possible, easily. In my opinion they are better than blogging for a collaborative space that students, teachers, parents, and professionals can work in together. There is more of a synthesis element to a Wiki in my experience. I’ve had a wiki for six years in one-way or another. Many different platforms have been required because of changing administrators and better security. My most recent foray has been into Edmodo. Which is not technically a wiki, but has many wiki-like elements. I appreciated how it worked very similarly to facebook, but still had layers of protection for students, their work, and since it was password protected I could post content previously considered in violation of it’s copyright to post to the entire internet, but fine for “for classroom use only.” It also had a very nice file-sharing program from teacher to student, but also allowed students to answer each other’s questions if they knew the answers before I could log back in.
Another more traditional wiki I have used and enjoyed are Stephen Taylor’s i-Biology site. I have mentioned this site before as a resource because he does use it as a blog medium as well. It has served as a resource aggregator, as well as a teacher-edited wiki. He also runs a Biology Lab Wiki where teachers can list and link ideas for experiments and other required elements to the IB Biology curriculum. Both of these sites are invaluable resources to IB Biology teachers, but neither of the sites are open for his students to make changes. Anyone can comment, but the pages themselves are only available to edit with the owner’s permission. It is organized remarkably well and while you can get lost down the rabbit hole of information, it is easy to find your way back up to the top again.
One of the better-known names in advanced biology has a wiki as well. It is actually a wikispaces site and is one of the best examples of student and teacher collaboration I have ever seen. David Knuffke is a teacher in New York and teaches Chemistry and AP Biology. Everything he has ever created to use for teaching is available somewhere on one of these sites. He uses multiple sites to accomplish all of his sharing, which can be a bit confusing at times, but the man is a teaching machine. I would have never made it through my first few year of teaching advanced biology with my brain intact without his amazing resources. I’m not sure the student’s responses are available to view anymore publicly, but he has taken several traditional paper projects into a wiki format for students. I have used this idea in one of my classes where students were required to create, post, edit, and correctly cite information about HIV/AIDS. Many of his pages were used as models of good design and interconnectivity. His website is not a work of art, one of the problems my students had with his site, but for usability it is the best site I’ve ever used for AP Biology.
One of the suggested sites I have viewed is Code Blue . This is a different type of site, with much more student writing and less resource bank for teachers and students. As a teacher, this is less useful to me, but I understand what the point of this is. There is not great organization on this site, but sixth graders designed it. The information on the site is also not novel, and could be found in a Google search.
I hope to start integrating a classroom wiki with my own textbook. I think that a wiki will fit an advanced biology classroom well in that it is infinitely editable so that I could include new resources and new discoveries as they happen. I would separate the textbook and the student writing sections, probably most similar to the ones David Knuffke has made. I would also like to use wikis more as a student project tool. The visual, text, video, and audio available on the wiki are a much richer medium for students to express their learning. It also makes the project a more authentic since it can be viewed by anyone or potentially cited as a resource for others. I have had students turn in electronic lab reports before in a manner that could be adapted to a blog or wiki page. These students have gone back to these pages repeatedly to help them write other labs both in my classes and others.
Another more traditional wiki I have used and enjoyed are Stephen Taylor’s i-Biology site. I have mentioned this site before as a resource because he does use it as a blog medium as well. It has served as a resource aggregator, as well as a teacher-edited wiki. He also runs a Biology Lab Wiki where teachers can list and link ideas for experiments and other required elements to the IB Biology curriculum. Both of these sites are invaluable resources to IB Biology teachers, but neither of the sites are open for his students to make changes. Anyone can comment, but the pages themselves are only available to edit with the owner’s permission. It is organized remarkably well and while you can get lost down the rabbit hole of information, it is easy to find your way back up to the top again.
One of the better-known names in advanced biology has a wiki as well. It is actually a wikispaces site and is one of the best examples of student and teacher collaboration I have ever seen. David Knuffke is a teacher in New York and teaches Chemistry and AP Biology. Everything he has ever created to use for teaching is available somewhere on one of these sites. He uses multiple sites to accomplish all of his sharing, which can be a bit confusing at times, but the man is a teaching machine. I would have never made it through my first few year of teaching advanced biology with my brain intact without his amazing resources. I’m not sure the student’s responses are available to view anymore publicly, but he has taken several traditional paper projects into a wiki format for students. I have used this idea in one of my classes where students were required to create, post, edit, and correctly cite information about HIV/AIDS. Many of his pages were used as models of good design and interconnectivity. His website is not a work of art, one of the problems my students had with his site, but for usability it is the best site I’ve ever used for AP Biology.
One of the suggested sites I have viewed is Code Blue . This is a different type of site, with much more student writing and less resource bank for teachers and students. As a teacher, this is less useful to me, but I understand what the point of this is. There is not great organization on this site, but sixth graders designed it. The information on the site is also not novel, and could be found in a Google search.
I hope to start integrating a classroom wiki with my own textbook. I think that a wiki will fit an advanced biology classroom well in that it is infinitely editable so that I could include new resources and new discoveries as they happen. I would separate the textbook and the student writing sections, probably most similar to the ones David Knuffke has made. I would also like to use wikis more as a student project tool. The visual, text, video, and audio available on the wiki are a much richer medium for students to express their learning. It also makes the project a more authentic since it can be viewed by anyone or potentially cited as a resource for others. I have had students turn in electronic lab reports before in a manner that could be adapted to a blog or wiki page. These students have gone back to these pages repeatedly to help them write other labs both in my classes and others.