Wiki

Among a proliferate listing of articles, books, and Blog commentaries that lend themselves to promoting wiki writing is  50 Ways to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom.   Resource creation, student participation, group projects, student interactions, classroom communications/organizations/celebrations and community are some of the categories they encourage educators to explore engaging students in writing in wikis.  The ReadWriteWeb expands uses but  more importantly demonstrates that a year and a half ago WetPaint a popular wiki site had raised over $40 million dollars in venture capital.  Wiki's are not a fad but a practical, effective, and efficient way to communicate collaborate.  More importantly they provide a framework to expand your own and others insights and learning as *"...we puny earthlings... reread, rethink, and especially revise."   In wikis we deepen our thinking and enrich our learning. (*Glen L. Bledsoe, Collaborative Digital Writing, Ch. 3, p.54)

Challenges in having students engage in collaborative writing are similar to the challenges in all cooperative grouping.  The Technology Teacher 10 Best Practices for using Wikis in Education offers advice and guidelines on how to address trust, participation, conventions, culture, authenticity, goals, deadlines etc.  With adults collaborators, the Seven Norms of Collaboration, would address issues that create challenges and invite all the wiki participants to bring their best selves to the wiki.  These norms are:

1.     Promoting a Spirit of Inquiry
2.     Pausing
3.     Paraphrasing
4.     Probing,
5.     Putting ideas on the Table (or I suggest wiki)
6.     Paying attention to self and others
7.     Presuming Positive Intentions

Currently, my most engaging wiki experience, that has met 21^st Century 2.0 criteria, is the TALL2 Wiki.  We explore Nathan Eklund's work about teacher job satisfaction. The Search Institute where Nathan works is most well know for it's work around assets for students.   Seven colleagues from six Minnesota school districts created the wiki to learn and share together with Nathan and engage 400 plus other professional development activists involved in Education Minnesota’s professional development division TALL (Teachers as Leaders and Learners).  Currently my public school district is sponsoring a CoP (Community of Practice) with 34 teachers studying How Was Your Day at School? Improving Dialogue about Teacher Job Satisfaction and may choose to engage in the wiki.   Please join our conversation TALL2 Wiki and add your insights and wisdom.

New Tool of the week:

CoWord a simple free way to work in Word simultaneously for group writing.  CoWord seems to be to Wiki Writing as Twitter is to Blogging.   It meets a simpler and smaller need to collaborate.