Inspired Classrooms

November 2009
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Feb
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Free, Ad-Free Wikis for Teachers

Posted in software, wiki's by inspiredclassrooms on the July 26, 2006

If you are searching for a good, kid-friendly and free Wiki to use in your classroom or at your campus, look no further. I have used both Wikispaces.com and PBwiki.com in the past, and like them both. Wikispaces, however, is visually simple, and there’s not a lot of extra features on every page to trip up young students or reluctant teachers. Best of all, there is an ad-free version for schools that I was happy to find. To sign up for a free, ad-free wiki, go to http://blog.wikispaces.com/2006/01/free-wikispaces-for-teachers.html .

When setting up your Wiki, you will probably want to go first to “Members and Permissions” and set the wiki to “Protected”, so that only those with a member name and password can write to the Wiki, but everyone can read it. This will help with security, but you will need to be diligent about watching for appropriate (or inappropriate) content.

So, what would do you use a Wiki for, you might ask? A Wiki is a website, where every page is editable (is that a word) by anyone who has the password. A wiki will let many people in a group add content from different locations at different times. For example, set up a classroom vocabulary wiki. Every time you start a new unit or introduce a new concept, add the new terms to your wiki. Students can log in and offer definitions to those terms and also compose sentences using the terms in context. Later, if a student comes across a term that he/she is not familiar with, they can go to the wiki and look it up. If a student comes across a term that is not in the Wiki, he/she can add it. Now imagine your class collaborating with all the other classes on your campus, managing a campus-wide vocabulary Wiki.

So isn’t that just like using the dictionary? Yes and no. The benefit of this over using a dictionary is CONTEXT. The context of a word used in your 3^rd grade social studies unit is many times different than what they’ll find in the dictionary. Learning terms and concepts in context of what they are doing in (and out of) the classroom, is what will build relevancy to those terms. I am not suggesting throwing out the dictionaries or using ONLY a wiki to define words. But, by using a wiki in this way, the students can become more engaged in the process of defining and using these terms.

So what happens if a student puts something incorrect in the Wiki? I would actually HOPE that this would happen in your classroom a few times throughout the year. If there is one thing that students need to learn, it would be the unreliability of information on the internet. Students need to learn to search and re-search things on the internet, checking and re-checking for the reliability of information found.

Take a look at Wikipedia.com. This is a huge (the world’s largest) encyclopedia open for the world to edit. So is everything in it correct? Recent studies have shown that it is as statistically accurate as the printed Encyclopedia Britannicas you have sitting on your shelves. How is that possible? The good people using Wikipedia outnumber the bad. When someone posts incorrect or inappropriate information on the Wikipedia, the next person that comes along and sees it can correct it. When the good outnumber and outwork the bad, you end up with mostly good information. You might use this same approach in your class wiki. Assign a student moderator to each wiki page, watching for and correcting information as needed.

Will these same concepts work when you are studying the water cycle, community helpers, explorers or poetry? You bet! Go make a wiki.

5-Part Video Series

Posted in staff development, videos by inspiredclassrooms on the July 14, 2006

After a brief summer vacation, I am back to work on Inspired Classroom resources to help those that are going to be making the switch next Fall. I have just finished putting together a five part video series for the teachers that couldn’t make it to the June training, or those that did attend and would like a refresher. If you are registered to to come to the the August training, I didn’t put everything in these videos so you’d still have a reason to come to the training. Besides, you won’t want to miss the great conversation and sharing during that session. These videos should open in a new window:

Part 1: What is an Inspired Classroom (12 minutes)
Part 2: Setting Up a Room (19 minutes)
Part 3: Why inspired Classrooms? (7 minutes)
Part 4: The Dangers of Technology Projects (10 minutes)
Part 5: Uusing New Tools to do New Work (16 minutes)

Please leave a comment using the comment link below and let me know what you think of these videos. I am interested to hear your points of view. If you have any ideas of more videos similar to these that would be helpful to you, let me know and I’ll get on it.

3 Comments

June Staff Development

Posted in staff development by inspiredclassrooms on the June 12, 2006

What a great week of staff development! Last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I conducted sessions in Irving ISD on Inspired Classrooms and Blogging in the Classroom. It was great to see so many teachers on board with these new concepts. We skipped right over the sales pitch in favor of the implementation plans. It is exciting to see that the teachers are ready to make the next steps in the integration process. Just read what they had to say about it:

"I believe this manner of teaching will revolutionize the way we make use of technology in the classroom."

"My hope would be that other teachers will get the opportunity to hear this message and get INSPIRED!!!"

"I have seen this in a couple of classrooms at our campus and it works great!!!"

"I can see so many ways this will bring the real world into the classroom, and will get students interested and working."

"I would like to see ALL staff trained on the Inspired classrooms as well a requirement for all teachers to use it at some level. I also think that administration should be taught this concept and involved as well by getting involved in classroom blogs."

"I am going to challenge several of the teachers at my school to consider using Inspired Classroom teaching as a way to build a collaborative working environment."

"This will make the use of technology in the classroom more relevant in the classroom."

"I will definately incorporate the IC's into my daily instruction. I can't wait to move desks and organize my classroom into a collaborative learning environment. This was very beneficial and I am INSPIRED as a teacher to take what I've learned today and start using it in the fall."

"I will be using the Inspired Classroom style of learning next year in the classroom. With all of the money that has been spent on technology, I feel that students will be getting more from technology by making it readily accessible to students."

"I will be completely transforming my classroom into an Inspired Classroom in the fall. I was able to see the real world value of this type of classroom and its applications."

"The computers CAN be integrated into the classroom daily, for more assignments than I thought, and more easily than I thought."

"Wow!!! I learned enough to keep me busy all summer figuring out ways to implement this and engage my students."

Wow is right. Talking about being at the right place at the right time! I can't think of a better time or better place for Inspired Classrooms to transform what's going on in our classrooms. We are fortunate in Irving that this would be such a no-brainer. Not only having the hardware and networking available, but the open-minded-ness (and expectation) at the administration level to use technology in a way that very well defines what it means to integrate the technology into the teaching and learning process. I wonder if this would be such an easy fit in other districts.

-Darren