Anyone with experience/advice on using a class scribe to post to class wiki?

I teach seventh grade science (biology) at a school that supports technology strongly. As I read through the various postings, I start brainstorming valuable uses for various technologies. I've checked out several middle school class wikis and am thinking of changing the way that I use wikis with my students.

My idea is to appoint a student each day to be the class scribe. That students job that evening is to summarize and post the events and notes from that day's class on the wiki.

My students are pretty strong technology users and have great access to computers and internet at home. We have 3 computer labs available to use with our student population (about 150 kids in middle school) so access to technology is not an issue.

Do you have an experience using a wiki in this manner? Any advice?

Tags: middle, science, scribe, wiki

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Permalink Reply by Kev on August 22, 2009 at 8:53am

I do this with my blog. I take student volunteers each day to do a short write up of what we did in class. They don't typically summarize the notes as those are available online anyway. Instead they mention the topic and post a more personal response to it.

I've done this for two years now and I really like it. There are problems of course (they are 7th graders, they tend to flake out) but it definitely adds a positive feel to the class.

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Permalink Reply by Martha Lipold on August 22, 2009 at 9:28am

Kev - I checked out your blog and I'm so impressed and inspired by what you've posted. Your work is beautiful. How often and for how long do your classes meet weekly. It appears that this is not a typical 45-min per day, 5 days per week class. Am I mistaken? The wide variety of assignments offered to your students are amazing and truly allow students to process information and show understanding in a wide variety of ways. How do you manage assignments - do you expect your students to earn a certain number of points and they select their own projects to earn points? Do you assign specific projects and all students complete the same assignments? (If this information is posted on your blog, don't waste your time answering again - just point me to the right place to find it.) Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts - and mentioning your blog. I've enjoyed spending time exploring!

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Permalink Reply by Kev on August 23, 2009 at 8:03am

We meet 50 mins, 5 days a week. Some of your questions might be answered on the FAQ page of the site (http://mrroughton.com/faq.aspx). The page is kind of hidden as I still playing around with the layout to make it work best for both teachers and students... I'll briefly answer your questions here, if you want more depth you can check the FAQ.

Students choose their own assignments every 3rd week. Depending on how many days I give them to do so (between 2 and 4 based on scheduling basically) they have to do a set number of points. Students who show mastery on the unit quiz are free to choose whatever they want from a specific list for that unit. I typically let honors/GATE kids choose any of the 45+ listed however. Those that do not master the material have specific assignments given that they must do and then they retake the quiz.

Hope that makes some sense.

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Permalink Reply by Kate Erdosy on August 30, 2009 at 8:03pm

Kev,
Your website is great. I have created a wiki on wikispaces and I want my kids to write a blog entry each week. My question to you is - I want their entry to appear like a blog on the wiki, with a button for comments, etc. Is that possible with a wiki? Or do they just post as if its a discussion and let the kids comment that way?

Thanks for your help.
Kate

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Permalink Reply by Kev on August 31, 2009 at 8:11am

Most wiki's have a discussion tab that goes along with the wiki page. You can use that for the comments. The only real downside is that the comments don't appear on the same page as the article/question/whatever.

For my site I embed my edublogs page into my officelive environment which is how I get the blog look and the comments.