Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Incorporating Wiki into an 8 week course



This assignment was a stretch for me as I am not teaching any adult courses right now.  However, I do like to incorporate the history of the English language when teaching high schoolers, so I chose to base my 8-week course on this topic.

I will be honest in saying that up until this course, I thought of wikis as only Wikipedia.  I had no idea the scope of collaboration or uses of a wiki!  So for my course wikis, I chose a getting to know you exercise for collaborative learning, a time-line for knowledge construction, and a collaborative research paper for critical thinking.

To implement this course would require much more planning than I could complete in a short time, but this is the general idea.  However, I'm still not sure if this fulfills the assignment requirements.

rlm


Unlocking the History of the English Language
An online course utilizing technology for adults who would like to learn more about the structure of the English language and improve their understanding and usage

Required text: Word Detective: Discovering the History of the English Language by Suzanne Caraker
Worksheets and Wiki link located within Learning Management System (LMS)

Week 1:  The English Language—ever changing
Required reading/viewing:
 www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r9bOkYW9s 
The History of English in 10 minutes
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY 
Wikis in Plain English
Learning Activities:
Complete your assigned groups Wiki Icebreaker Activity: Stem Statements (collaborative learning) (West & West, 2009)
Objective:
Receive a quick and humorous overview of the evolution of the English Language.
Familiarize yourself with the use of Wiki while getting to know your classmates
Week 2: The three periods of English
Learning Activities:
            Read pp 1-2 Caraker (2004)
            Complete Worksheet 1
Construct a Wiki Timeline for the three periods of English with your assigned Wiki Group (knowledge construction) (West & West, 2009)
Objectives: 
Use the workbook and wiki project to construct knowledge about the three periods of English and history surrounding them
Week 3: Anglo Saxon Words
Learning Activities:
            Read pp 3-14 Caraker (2004)
            Complete Worksheet 3
            Additional handout Root Clues for Identifying Anglo-Saxon Words
Retrieved from http://www4.esc13.net/
Objectives: 
Discover the 25 clues for identifying Anglo-Saxon words
Week 4: Latin Words
Learning Activities:
            Read pp. 15-23 Caraker (2004)
            Complete Worksheet 4
           Additional handout Root Clues for Identifying Latin Words    
Retrieved from http://www4.esc13.net/
Objectives: 
Discover the 16 clues for identifying Latin origin words
Week 5: Greek Words
Learning Activities:
            Read pp. 23-27 Caraker (2004)
            Complete Worksheet 5
            Additional handout Root Clues for Identifying Greek Words
Retrieved from http://www4.esc13.net/
Objectives:
          Discover the 10 clues for identifying Greek origin words
Week 6: Identifying Anglo-Saxon words
Learning Activities:
            Complete worksheets 6-10
Produce flashcards on http://www.quizlet.com using worksheets 6-10.  Place words on front with origin and clue on the back.
Objectives:
            Gain proficiency and confidence in identifying Anglo-Saxon words
Week 7: Identifying Latin and Greek Words
Learning Activities:
            Complete worksheets 11-18
Produce flashcards on http://www.quizlet.com using worksheets 11-18.  Place words on front with origin and clue on the back
Objectives:
            Gain proficiency and confidence in identifying Latin and Greek origin words
Week 8 Final Product: Wiki Research Paper: How Technology Has Changed the English Language
Learning Activities:
Collaborate with your wiki team to produce a wiki research paper on how technology has changed the English language (critical thinking). (West & West, 2009)
 Be sure to cite your references.
Objectives:
            Gain understanding of our ever-changing English language

Rubric for Wiki grading
https://www2.uwstout.edu/content/profdev/rubrics/wikirubric.pdf

Caraker, S. (2004). Word detective: Discovering the history of the English language. www.neuhaus.org
West, J. A., & West, M. L. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.



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10 comments:

  1. HKSeptember 24, 2015 at 11:25 AM

    This assignment has been a stretch for everybody!

    You made efforts to design different learning activities to showcase how wiki can be used to foster critical thinking, collaborative learning and knowledge construction, which I think should be commended and your instructor should not ignore. ;-)

    I studied all your learning activities related to the use of wiki and found it easy to understand what students are expected to do in Weeks 1, 2 and 8. The question I have is with your Weeks 3~7 activities. Looks like your students will be mainly making flashcards and completing worksheets in those weeks. So, they will not have wiki activities from Weeks 3 to 7?

    Also, the learning objective of your week 8 is "Gain understanding of our ever-changing English language" while the topic of your wiki research paper is "how technology has changed the English language". They don't seem to match with each other. Or maybe I misunderstood the activities for Week 8?

    Kang

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  2. robin mSeptember 24, 2015 at 4:38 PM

    You're right--looking back at this, it is not very cohesive. I am just starting this journey and have a long way to go in learning how to develop and manage a course. The final wiki project objective should be learning about this newest stage of English Language and how technology has influenced it and changed our language. I guess I wasn't clear about having a wiki project every week, but most likely the class would be working on the project for several weeks--I just failed to include that in activities.

    Thanks for your input--it was helpful and made me look closer at the assignment . As I look at the other blogs from experienced teachers, I can see how it should have been done.

    Thanks again

    rlm

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  3. OaktreeSeptember 26, 2015 at 2:36 AM

    Your choice of resources, such as quizlet and rubric for wikis are useful. As I read your post, I wonder if there is any wiki project that can incorporate the contents from week 3 thru week 7, so the students can synthesize and apply their learning to their final project. If this is an English literature course, a wiki project called story creation (West and West, 2009, p.114) may be an option. Or collaborating a creative wiki that contains useful mnemonics with those prefixes and suffixes as a learning game can be another possibility.

    References
    West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for online collaboration: The power of the read-write Web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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  4. robin mSeptember 26, 2015 at 6:56 AM

    Oaktree--thank you for your input. Those are good suggestions. You are correct in that I should have incorporated more wiki projects leading up to the final project. This has definitely been a learning experience!

    Thanks again--rlm

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  5. mbennettSeptember 26, 2015 at 12:56 PM

    Robin

    I have to agree that you could incorporate some wiki work during week 3-7 into those weeks leading up to the creation of the final wiki project. It might just be you give them some group time at the end of class to discuss the project and where they are at, what needs to be accomplished and time for questions.

    I love your incorporation of using a Wiki Icebreaker. I also incorporated a “get to know you/team building” activity when the learners get into their Wiki groups for the first time. West and West (2009) explain that “preparing students” for wiki work will add to the quality of the final project and the collaboration efforts of the group (pp. 30-31). I think it is so important. I am still trying to come up with an effective way of using a team icebreaker for an online course.

    A very solid strength of your course weekly schedule outline, I believe, is that you stated your objectives for each week. I like that. I always forget to do that. I list the objectives in the syllabus and forget to link each course to an objective or objectives. I do this for my online courses but for some reasons always forget for my on-campus courses.

    Great job Robin,
    Melinda

    West, J. A., & West, M. L. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. robin mSeptember 26, 2015 at 1:24 PM

      Thanks, Melinda! I appreciate any and all suggestions:)

      rlm

      Delete
  6. UnknownSeptember 27, 2015 at 12:53 PM

    Great post, first off. I like how detailed everything is and I feel that it will help students with knowing what each week's assignments are. I know from the previous comments that this has been a learning process for you, as it has been for all of us this week. One thing that I have encountered in the formation of a curriculum plan that has also been pointed out by our classmates is the need to include some kind of mid-course evaluation. I think that by doing this, we help to adapt the overall outcome of the learning experience in a way that is somewhat decided by the students themselves. Especially when dealing with people in an adult learner environment who are more inclined to an Androgogical perspective and are more self-motivated.

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  7. nowtrendingSeptember 27, 2015 at 9:34 PM

    I completely agree that this week's assignment is a stretch! I don't have any experience in lesson planning and didn't find the examples particularly helpful. I feel like I missed an entire segment on lesson planning! On reflection I think it would have been more helpful if this assignment was actually structured as a wiki assignment. I would have appreciated having a couple weeks to collaborate with another student who actually has experience in lesson planning; I wouldn't have felt so alone in this endeavor and could have taken more than a few days to put together a solid plan. I do, however, feel the assignment was valid, because I think it's one thing to experience a wiki from a student perspective but entirely different from an instructor experience of how to incorporate wiki into adult learning.

    I like that you got your students to jump right into wiki from week 1. I really loved the You Tube video, Wikis in Plain English. It provided a fast and user-friendly overview of how wikis contribute to collaboration and takes the intimidation factor out of wiki! Thanks for sharing the You Tube with us. I agree with some of the other comments about incorporating wiki in weeks 3-7. Perhaps having additional milestones for the research paper?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. nowtrendingSeptember 27, 2015 at 10:26 PM

      Robin,
      I also wanted to comment about continuing to use wiki during weeks 3-7 to keep the momentum going. Cole (2009) states, "Once e-learning behaviours have been established various Wiki activities are required at regular intervals throughout the course to maintain student interest" (p. 145). I think besides student interest it would also help with student confidence. Implementing scaffolding to support the development of the final research paper might be helpful during the middle weeks. West & West (2009) indicate that scaffolding is provided to students until they are capable of self-directed learning. Students new to wiki who might not know how to begin or even how to proceed would particularly benefit from scaffolding.

      References
      Cole, M. (2009). Using wiki technology to support student engagement: lessons from the trenches. Computers & education, 52, 141-146.

      West, J. A., & West, M. L. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

      Delete
    2. robin mSeptember 28, 2015 at 6:24 AM

      nowtrending--thank you for your comments and suggestions. I agree that this would have made a good wiki project. I would have appreciated being able to pull from the knowledge of experienced instructors. But I also agree that it was a valid assignment. Being able to view other lesson plans was very helpful.

      rlm

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