My progress is going slowly. With all of the other work for this class, my own classroom, and the fact that I just got a student teacher I haven't played around much more with my pretend wiki. I have however discussed the topic with my class to see if they thought next year's students would be interested in creating a wiki. I figured if they said no it would open up a dialogue and get me to rethink my goals, as I don't want to spend time creating a huge project with little to no enthusiasm from my kids. Luckily, my class thought it sounded like a lot of fun, and wanted to know if we could try one later this year (oh dear…). I'm still looking around for more examples of class wikis in elementary school to guide me, but I am not ready to change my initial goals. I think my project is a good one, and I need to just keep going with creating my pretend wiki as a model for my class. Next time I try to improve my learning, I will do just as I have done, set up a model, have a conversation with my class to gauge their interest level, and tweak as needed.
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I'VE MOVED!!!!
8 years ago
Erica, I know. I recently recieved a grant. I feel that things are just catching up with me. We must remember to take breaks and breathe deep, and " This too shall pass."
ReplyDeleteCheck out this website: A Million Ways to Teach http://citizenschools.org/encorps/get_involved_with_citizen_schools.htm
Erica, I completely understand how you are feeling. We have a very needed break next week in my district and I am looking forward to it o get caught up and to find time to start creating new projects. It does seem like there are always a million things to do and little less and less time to do them. It sounds like you are on the right track and I'm sure that your wiki will fall into place at the right time.
ReplyDeleteI set up a wiki project a few years ago with little knowledge of how it would turn out. The best advice I can give you if you move forward with it this year is to roll with it. No matter when you use the project there will be peaks and valleys so I just chalk up the difficulties to modeling problem solving for the students. My first ones were not all that great but we took the time to come up with suggestions to make the process and finish products better for the next year.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you about how much work we all have every week. Last week I had a meeting every day last week, and did not get home till aroudn 5:30pm every night. We actually also have a day off this coming week, but we also have a day long technology conference. I will be presenting at the conference. Take your time, do not jump into anythign to fast otehrwise you will not be ready to use it properly in your classroom.
ReplyDeleteErica,
ReplyDeleteThis indeed is a crazy time of year. It seems like there is a ton of things to do, and we just keep adding more to do. With the wiki, maybe you could make a model one with your class. Just one big one together. It might be an easier way to implement the wiki, than having everybody make their own. Take a step back and be proud of what you have accomplished.