What's the Best Platform to Showcase Student Work?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Margaret McCall on May 7, 2009 at 9:09am

Hi Ann,

I'm fairly new here and I'm wondering about Wikispaces. I did sign up for a blog as an easy access space for my course assignments etc. What has turned me off is that students can change things on the wikispace that I set up. Does this happen with your space? Or is this not an issue?

Peggy

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Permalink Reply by Eric Hamilton on May 7, 2009 at 9:29am

Peggy,

There is a page lock function on wispaces. On your front page, go to "Manage Wiki" Click on the "pages" icon. Find th page you want to lock, and on the far right side of the screen there should be a link to "Actions" Click on that and a drop down menu will appear. One of the options is "lock"

Good luck

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Permalink Reply by Ann on May 10, 2009 at 9:34am

In truth, the students have only changed things on the wikis we use where it is appropriate. I do several things to help this along. First, the wiki is set to "protected" mode. They need a user id and password to access the wiki. Second, I assign each student an individual user id and password. The user id travels with the student their entire career with the school. This is my third year using wikis with several grades. Their id is a combination of the initials of the school, the year they graduation eighth grade and a number (e.g., SMS2009-01). Third, I subscribe to all edits and discussions on any wiki we are involved in. If you use something like Google Reader, you can go to the wiki page and click Manage Wiki on the left side of the screen. Select the Notifications link under Tools. Copy and paste the RSS link into the reader. I used to subscribe via email, but it just cluttered up my inbox.

I saw someone else mention locking pages. I haven't gone that route at this point. I've had really good experiences with the students. I've had discussions about good and bad choices other students have made outside our building in collaborations. This has worked so far. Please let me know if I can be of further help, Margaret.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on May 10, 2009 at 12:46pm

I would strongly encourage you to not lock down your wiki. The point of the tool is to encourage collaboration. As Ann mentioned in her post, you can subscribe to all changes (through email or RSS) if you are concerned about what students might do to the pages. Plus, the wiki will store all previous versions of every page. This allows you to easily delete a page revision that includes material you deem inappropriate.

Use the wiki as a teachable moment regarding responsible online behavior and the fact that everything we do online is logged or recorded in some way. I had the same fears as you initially, but I have had no serious issues so far (a couple students wrote some silly stuff that was easily cleaned up... "Mark is the best" etc.). I deal with cases like that on an individual basis since it has been such a small problem.

Knowing that you are trusting them to make appropriate edits to the class pages can be an empowering experience for students.

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Permalink Reply by Donelle on May 10, 2009 at 12:55pm

"Knowing that you are trusting them to make appropriate edits to the class pages can be an empowering experience for students."

Love that line, Tim!! I agree completely!

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Marcinek on May 3, 2009 at 2:42pm

Wiki's have always worked well for me as well as a class moodle. With a wiki you can open it up for everyone to see or simply keep it private for parents, students and administration. I have also found flickr to be a very good option for housing images and artwork.

That said, I imagine GoogleDocs would be the most seamless application

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Permalink Reply by Donelle on May 3, 2009 at 4:06pm

Thanks, Andrew. I am on a small team of teachers working to bring Moodle to our school. We have been asked to create and design courses all next year, but wait to pilot until Fall 2010. I know. Wish we could start sooner, but the school is trying to keep us in the current system as we slowly take a full year to redesign all curriculum, to fit an online model. We are about to make an incredible shift in the way we approach teaching and student assessment.

As for student work, I'm leaning towards the blog or wiki for now. Which wiki do you use and how have you organized it to allow viewers to comment on specific posted work?

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Permalink Reply by Eric Hamilton on May 3, 2009 at 8:27pm

Voicethread is great. Students can upload their artwork and then comment via microphone or text.

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Permalink Reply by Donelle on May 4, 2009 at 9:25pm

Eric, have you tried FlowGram in the classroom?

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Permalink Reply by Eric Hamilton on May 5, 2009 at 6:00am

Wow! No, I just checked it out. I can see the possibilities. In fact, I am giving a presentation to my district in June on Web 2.0. Maybe, instead of a powerpoint, I will use this. What has your experience been with Flowgram?

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Permalink Reply by Donelle on May 5, 2009 at 6:39pm

To be honest, not much yet. I just found it too, but am also seeing the possibilities. Larry Ferlazzo has done amazing things with it. Check here. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Mark Marshall on May 5, 2009 at 12:16am

Personally, I think either Blogger or Wetpaint Wikis are the best. Both are free and simple interface to use.

I have a class blog through Blogger and I can upload video, photos or other files. I can embed voicethreads or any other web 2.0 tool that I use.

See example for details: http://2mmiskl.blogspot.com/

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