Digital Blog Post #D

Strategies for using Wikis with Students

Of course, there are many ways you can use technology, and Wikis are just the same. As a teacher, there are some decisions to be made about how to use the Wiki in your classroom. Chances are it is a decision you will have to make each year with every new group of students because each class will have different needs. This is my approach. I believe that the Wikis should be used in context with how the class runs most efficiently. If as a teacher you know that you have a good number of students that will not do their part in group work, maybe it would be better to have each person do their work, and then have students review other wikis as a way to learn information. However, groups work is very important. It helps to teach students the idea of teamwork which is valued in most careers. Therefore, another option that would allow group work would be to put the group of students who do not typically do group work in the same group. This will force students to take charge and hopefully collaborate. There is a downside to both options, but I think the group work would be ideal in many situations. Another huge thing teachers need to keep in mind is that students could plagiarize information, or even post inappropriate information. I know I have had a teacher that would very lightly skim through an assignment, and miss inappropriate information that students would try to sneak in there just to see if he would catch it. As much as we would like to, we cannot always trust that a student will do what we ask. Another thing to keep in mind is that if a student is plagiarizing information, he or she might not even realize it. By catching those mistakes, teachers can help students realize the importance of citing and paraphrasing information properly.

Text Reading Software

Text reading software is one of the best applications that technology can offer us. I recently went to a convention in Orlando that displayed new technology advances in the education field, and there were so many amazing applications regarding text to speech. Each application basically had the same screen reading software, optical character recognition, and word prediction software, but then had its own little twist. One actually tracked eye movement on the screen, so students who can not physically touch the screen can look at words to create sentences or learn new words. This opens up so many doors for students with disabilities, or even typical students. These applications allow every student to access and learn the words they need. The word prediction software is very helpful for students who are just learning how to put sentences together because as a student builds a sentence, it will only give words that would make sense in that context. For example, if a student already put together "I am...", then the software would give words such as "going" rather than "go." 

Process Approaches to Writing

There are five steps to writing:

-Brainstorming: generating ideas for the topic

-Drafting: beginning the writing process

-Revising: changing the writing to make ideas more clear

-Editing: reviewing possible gramatical and punctuation errors

-Publishing: sharing the complete work with others

These steps are all very important in the writing process. By skipping over just one step, the students paper could be less than what is expected from him or her. The good news is that students can feel connected to these steps by incorporating technology. It used to be that when you wanted information you had to go to the library. This is even before my time. I have always had access to technology in school. Technology can greatly help the brainstorming process. If a student has no idea what he or she wants to write about, the student can look to google for inspiration. If a student has a good idea, but does not know where to go from there, he or she can look to google for more information. Now, it is always important for the teacher to make sure that the students know how to look for relevant information. The revising and editing stages can both be helped by a computer thanks to spell check. In many instances, the computer will be able to tell you if you spelled a word wrong. When the writing is complete, technology gives the opportunity to share it with people all over the world, or just the teacher if need be.

Resources:

Friedline, C. (2016, March 5). EME 2040 [Prezi]. Retrieved March 05, 2016, from https://prezi.com/y2qbg2_zjfpi/strategies-for-using-wikis-with-students/

J. (2014, July 17). IVONA Text-To-Speech - Accessibility. Retrieved March 05, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtnYBKVSXf0

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.