The SurRural Librarian

I’ve been so jazzed about our wiki project, that I forgot to share. Our 5th/6th grade class has been working on a unit on advertising. While their classroom teacher covers print marketing strategies, I’ve been applying the same concepts to discussions of internet advertising. It’s the most fun I’ve had teaching yet.

To make it more exciting, the students and I have been creating a wiki on internet marketing towards kids.

With all the 2.0 hype, I’ve been trying not to jump on the bandwagon with no reason. So I got my own little web 2.0 laboratory happening.

And, I’m here to tell you, I am sold.

Just in the short amount of time we’ve been able to spend on it (scheduling? can’t I just have them all day long?) the amount of learning I’ve seen is awe inspiring. Here’s a short list of some of what I’m seeing:

Working as a team and being part of a community
Respecting the work of others
Writing for an audience
Owning a project
Slowing down and being more careful with their work

Plus..
Learning how Wikipedia works. They really get the everyone edits concept now. Librarians take note.

Plus…
Learning great tech skills in multiple apps. They’ve picked up screen shots, resizing images, converting image types. They’re uploading images from desktop to site, and inserting them into pages. They’re formatting with wiki code (pbwiki has wysiwyg now, but they’re having fun learning just a wee bit of code, so we’re not using it).

I’m also seeing:

Community: If they run into a good example of something they know other students are covering, they’ll grab a screen shot of it for them. They’ll upload it to the wiki and let the student know it’s there. (I think they’d put it on the page too, but they don’t want to deny the other kid all the fun.)

Problem Solving: Getting pictures of animations they have to use the mouse to interact with has been a puzzle for many of the kids. They eventually figure out the timer in Grab, and work at it (obsessively) until they get just the shot they need.

Enthusiasm: They come find me in the library when they’re supposed to be looking for silent reading material and ask me when we’re having class next. (don’t tell). I am regularly cheered for upon walking into the classroom.

I love that the wiki gives them the ability to publish on the web and work with formatting and not have to mess around with design. No wallpaper, no animations, but they do have to think about how to best present material to a reader.

A couple of things you’ll probably want to consider before embarking on a wiki project of your own…

Do you have a classroom teacher willing to let you try new things and be generous with class time?

Do you have a good topic, something focused? I think ours is an easy fit because we’re talking about the internet & media literacy, but subject matter could be all over the place.

Do you have any good ideas for multi-media? Slideshows, images, movies, drawings, podcasts really liven up any project and a wiki provides an easy platform.

Do you have fun, enthusiastic students? (I bet you do).

Do you have a willingness to collaborate with your students and learn from them? I never have every answer in class, I often have the kids figure it out and teach me once they’ve got it.

We’re still in the early stages, they’re hardly ready for prime time yet. But the process is what I’m excited about, more than the end product. I’ll post links when it (and the upcoming Junior High wiki on sustainability!) are just a little bit further along.