student-run school blogs or wikis

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Permalink Reply by Peter Lane on February 3, 2009 at 12:28am

Steve, for the reasons you mentioned... everything, in the end, will need to be ultimately approved by me as I represent the final security valve for the school and the district. I am working to set-up an Quality Control Team (made up of students) that will work with me to handle both what is posted by the class and the comments submitted by the student-body.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Fogleman on February 3, 2009 at 12:19pm

I agree with Steve that a wiki would not pass as a school website.

My suggestion for Matt is to use a two wiki system as an "online writing studio ==> publishing venue" combination. Within the closed wiki, articles could be moderated, shaped, peer edited, and discussed by the journalism (English) teacher and students. This wiki offers a safe (for Ss and Ts) creative space without so much worry about public scrutiny.

Once a candidate for publication, an article could be ported over to the public wiki which might still be locked except for possibly allowing comments. The school's website could include a link to this wiki just like they would link to the latest copy of the school newspaper.

Matt, I agree with you about the importance of accessibility for wikis, but this would be a different type of application for a different purpose. The heavily moderated wiki could serve to ratchet up the quality standards of students' written work, as school newspapers have traditionally done.

One problem with having students publish their draft works in a public wiki is that it misrepresents the effort and process that goes into creating a finished written product. Authors generally do not create their drafts of significant work in public without any sort of editorial assistance. If we're serious about facilitating high-quality writing, I think it is only fair to provide the supports that writers have relied on in the past.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Lane on February 3, 2009 at 12:30am

We will be working within wikis to manage our ideas... and then using the blog to post the final work.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Lane on February 3, 2009 at 12:23am

Ironically, our yearbook teacher is also our software lead teacher... who refuses to embrace wikis and blogs... Go figure!

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Permalink Reply by Peter Lane on February 3, 2009 at 12:24am

Matt, for all of the reasons you mentioned I am eager to see what the students put together. I am also interested in them putting together a history page of sorts -- using a wiki (possibly even linking it to Wikipedia).

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Permalink Reply by Ed Gonsalves on February 5, 2011 at 6:39am

Hi Peter

Don't know if you can help me with this?

 

My Masters students want to publish their weekly findings in the form of an online newspaper. ie front cover story, back cover story, etc. They want to act as expert journalists and editors on each week's domain based on desk research and industrial expert interviews. Something that looks like a real print edition but online so that they can e-distribute it across the campus. Do you know of any free, education sympathetic providers out there. They want to add photos, etc, etc

Many thanks

Ed

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Kutkey on February 7, 2011 at 8:58am

Yes, go to wikispaces.com.  E mail me if you have more questions.  patrick.kutkey@evergreenps.org

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Permalink Reply by Peter Lane on February 7, 2011 at 9:25am

Thanks for the input Patrick - have you created online newspapers using wikispaces?  If so, I would love to see what you have...

 

Pete 

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Kutkey on February 7, 2011 at 10:58am

I haven't created an online newspaper, but I think it would work quite well. I have had several groups of students create a 'how to' site on using a program called RPG Maker.  I am on the Plus Plan which allows for no ads and a private wiki, so that you can control who has write access. This was provided at no charge by wikispaces. I can't remember if this was a one time only deal, but I have found their support to be very friendly and I bet they would upgrade you at no charge if you asked nicely.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Lane on February 7, 2011 at 9:27am

Ed,

 

If you are looking for something that actually appears as newspaper might than I am not sure I have the answer for you.  I have heard of some sites that may provide that type of formatting but my mind is blanking on them at the moment - I'll check my resources today and get back to you.

 

I ended up using Edublogs as the newspaper base which cost me a nominal amount ($40 a year so I could be ad-free).  However, my bigger issue was that I had the wrong students and the wrong class to launch an online newspaper.  Some of my students could write, some could handle the technical end of the class - neither could do both.  Additionally, they saw this class as their "fun" hour...  I was a bit too ambitious in my first year teaching technology.  Three years later I think I am in a better place to put an online paper in place...  This clearly won't be an issue for you as your students want to do this and they are well clear of their pubescent years... : ) and the cost is minimal if you want to go through a blog platform.

 

The other option, as Patrick mentions in his comment, is Wikispaces.  Here you will also run into the issues of ads but can pay for an ad-free site with an upgrade.  I have used Wikispaces and love them - however, I have no idea how a online newspaper might look on a wiki.      

 

Hope this helps in some way

 

Pete

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Jay Fogleman on February 7, 2011 at 10:15am

As Patrick and Peter have suggested, wikispaces is a good place for this work. Higher Ed does not qualify for free ad-free sites as far as I know.

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