An Explanation

Tikiwiki is an excellent, open source content management system. Tikiwiki has many functions such as blogs, wikis, articles, and image galleries. Fairly easy to install on most servers, it is incredibly easy to use. Its key features are a Word like WYSIWYG editing bar and uploading fields.

A Solution to a Need

My school district features three separate middle schools. We needed a way to share and communicate resources, particularly lesson plans. Too often we would meet and discover that four or five of us had invented the same wheel (be they powerpoints, tests, or lessons). There had to be a way to create a system that was easy to use, share, and (most importantly) search resources.

Our district set up a shared, grade level folder. This, however, was unacceptable because there was no standard naming system (not to mention file creation system).

My solution was to install Tikiwiki. Tikiwiki addressed the concerns of content creation and searchable resources.

An added benefit to the program was that it allowed me to share all my resources across a different set of computers. Essentially, my tikiwiki installation has become my “center of the cloud” for all my educational resources. As long as I have an internet connection, I can complete school work.

Demonstration

Reflections

My utilization of Tikiwiki is still very much in a trial phase. However, I’ve come to a few conclusions and am currently sharing them with my school district.

Tikiwiki is, indeed, a simple and straightforward way to solve the needs identified. Some of my colleagues who are shy around technology have found the program simple to use, both in adding content and in finding resources they can use. Of particular note, they found the easy way of adding files they’ve already created on their computers to be most useful.

Plus, because the software is open source, it costs nothing.

There are some concerns, many of which center around the technical aspects of the software. For example, would it be better to host the software on an external server or on a district server? How would the district deal with the myriad copyright issues of hosting both created content and publisher content? Would teachers invest the time (even if it’s short) required to learn the program?

As it stands, the district has decided to consider Tikiwiki as a viable option.

An Explanation

Cicero’s Kids was a class blog maintained by my honor students. The blog uses WordPress as its platform. WordPress allowed me to give students varying permissions. They could write posts and make comments on posts, but these comments and posts wouldn’t appear on the web until I approved them. WordPress is easy for students to use, allowing them to compose their posts with a simple editing bar as well as add video and pictures to their posts.

A Solution to a Need

Learning is more than the state mandated standards. It’s also about the tangents you take while learning about those standards. It’s the random questions that go along with the subjects. It’s about finding possible solutions to mysteries.

I have many standards I need to teach over the year. Unfortunately, this gives my students little time to reflect on what they’re learning or where their thoughts might go (the tangents). I need a venue that allows students to explore their thoughts. I teach social science. I want to encourage my kids to reflect on the scope of human interactions with the world. However, I don’t have this time to spend in the classroom.

The solution is a class blog. Cicero’s Kids is a place where they reflect on what they’ve learned, what’s happening in society around them, and ask creative questions. It’s completed outside the classroom, on their own time, and builds into their latent social curiosities.

Demonstration

Reflections

Conceptually, I really liked the idea behind Cicero’s Kids. I field tested the blog with a few chosen students and worked out a few kinks. However, after opening the blog to the entire class, I quickly discovered a number of difficulties.

Blog writing is a relatively new style of writing. It can be argumentative and thoughtful, however it is not lengthy. Paragraphs are short. Large blocks of text don’t work well with online writing. It that way, blog writing is similar to newspapers. I gave my students guidelines and expected them to do well.

What I got was a combination of text messaging and boring book reports.

My students would write posts that summarized what they learned in the class that day. I would get 30 posts on the Industrial Revolution, each reading like a texted wikipedia article. Absolutely no creative writing was involved, much less questioning. This wasn’t the kind of thinking I wanted.

Now part of this may be because of the way school works for them. In eighth grade, they’re taught there is “one” answer to every question and one way of doing things. They complained that they “didn’t know what to write about”. I gave them too much freedom. They didn’t like thinking up questions. They wanted a formula for creativity.

I didn’t have a formula for creativity (who does?). But I did have to make some changes. The first was I modeled a number of different posts that served as examples for the type of writing I was looking for. I then gave them different organizational styles to change up their writing. For example, I would say “Try writing in Chronological Order, but start at the end and switch to the beginning”. And finally, I gave them a more detailed rubric to understand what type of post would earn the highest grade.

Slowly (and I believe this project is a process), their writing has improved. I’ve taken to pointing out the beginnings of certain tangents (i.e. “Obama wants to extend the school year”) as possible subjects to write about. The students themselves have started to recognize “blog questions” that come up in the news, at school, or in their lives.

A final note about WordPress. The blogging platform is enjoyed by all my students. They particularly like the fact that they can post video and images.

An Explanation

Google Apps is a collection of services provided by Google. Services such as email, office software, sites, calendar, video and chat are run under your own domain name (for example, www.delhims.org). An adminstrator selects which functions to use and creates user accounts via a simple dashboard.

A Solution to a Need

Due dates for history papers were always a chaotic time. I would have students unable to print their files at home, bring uncompatible formats to school, or corrupt new versions of a paper. Excuses, some legitimate some not, would flood my email box. I needed a uniformed way for my students to write their papers in once central location.

The solution was Google Apps. While there are a number of features to Google Apps, I signed up for it because of Google Docs. Google Docs is an online office suite that features a word procesor, spreadsheat, and presentation. As long as students had an internet connection, they could type their papers. Plus, Google automatically saved edits every 30 seconds or so, allowing students to compare edits. And, most importantly, a number of people could work on the same document at the same time (so students could add me as a contributer to their paper, allowing me to write comments on their assignments).

Best of all, students could login to a computer at school and print out their papers in one uniformed format.

Reflections

Google Docs has been a praticle success in my classroom. Indeed, a number of students have extended the application to their other classes, writing their English and Science papers while using their account.

Because Google Apps has a number of features, I did need to disable some components my district frowned upon. While students were assigned an email account (for example: “student@delhims.org”), they could not use email. I also disabled the chat feature. I left Google Sites as an option for future use, but have yet to design a lesson around it.

I’ve also peaked the interest of a number of colleagues. At one point our district assigned three teachers from three separate schools to write a set of history tests. Instead of driving to district office during a school day, we all worked on the test documents, in real time, from our individual schools (occasionally using the chat feature to communicate ideas). Being able to have different users edit the same document or spreadsheet has many advantages.

Google Apps is offered free of costs to educators. I was recently told that my district is looking at it as a serious alternative to Microsoft Office. Google’s office suite is by no means as robust as Microsoft Office, however, for student use, it is a very functional tool.