Wordle: WIKI wonderful creative fun confusing challenging collaborative "Learning Commons" potential control giving sharing public private exciting rich "THANK YOU"
Addendum - Labour of Love in days and years to come
Starting my first wiki - most enjoyable experience ... ahh the potential. I created a PB wiki for my local teacher-librarian association. As Jenn mentioned we had tried two years ago with wikispaces, but despite the keen interest, it didn't take off. I remember logging into my account two days after the overview at our t-l meeting, but I couldn't figure out how to get started or edit; thus, it quickly fell down my priority list, as well as for others
Nevertheless, looking back at this wiki, perhaps this wikispaces could still be used in conjunction with the one I set up. The district T-L had smartly started with the simple theme of picture book lessons. She gave examples of two picture books and learning outcomes for each, along with supplies, and activities to coincide with the book:
By clicking on one of the books, it opens up the lesson plan for that book. The visuals make this template/format inviting to explore:
While the above wiki is a great starting place for lesson plans associated with books, the PB Wiki I started has a larger scope. Not only do I want to include lesson plans related back to books, but also for larger curricular units: for example the Medieval Unit often done by our middle school. Further, I wanted a gathering and storing place for networking and Web 2.0 sources. In addition, I tried to organize a great deal of conceptual thought around Gordon Powell's framework of Library Administration - teaching is just one of our multitudinous roles. And organizing this complex learning context is challenging.
Overall, I've created a skeleton template for what I hope will be a meeting place, organizational tool, storage place, and professional development medium. While fleshing out the skeleton seems behemoth, if my colleagues buy into the concept, then hopefully we share this task together. While I tried to organize a great deal of conceptual thought around Gordon Powell's framework of Library Administration, I imagine this framework with change and evolve as the dialog begins. I look forward to that process, but I also sense that in the wiki journey my negotiation, as well as compromising skills will be honed. As the creator of the wiki, I know I will have to let go of the initial control I start off with in design and organization of the wiki - a process which "power" people (Restitution Model) may struggle with. In any case, that journey will model for all of us what we may begin asking our students to embark on. Just looking at the differences and goals of the district t-T-ls wiki and the wiki I created are quite different, yet also similar.
In my wiki creation journey for LIBE 477, once again, I got so caught up in perusing and reading various educational wikis and blogs: Cordova Bay, Ekdal's, Heather Daly's that I got behind in creating my own writings/projects! Nevertheless, here are some of my observations and ponderings.
Viewing Vs Editing Capabilities
In looking at Jean Prevost's wikis - Library Wikis, and Techtools4learning, I can only view the pages. In the Library wikis the edit windows are visible, but when I click on the "edit" tab, it gives me the option to request edit permissions rather than being able to directly edit. I like that feature - must learn how to invite my specific SD83 T-L group, and then add the request feature for other users. My wiki is presently public and open to all to edit. I thought I would start there for the ease of course peer access and because I don't think my site will go viral any time soon (tee hee). Thus, I invite my LIBE 477 peers to delve in and see what resources, information, and design ideas you can suggest or simply jump in and change.
Future Dead Links?
Back to the behemoth size that some of these wikis can become, it reminded me of the high school library web page I used to run and the hundreds of links I had in there. Dead links can easily become an issue for large sites. While web sites can add a feature (I understand) to have the site's links trolled checking for dead links, without this feature it can become an onerous task to keep a website "current." What about for wikis? As I was adding in all of those links, the same issue of future dead links concerned me.
In Closing
The PB Wiki I created I hope will become the start of a learning commons for my t-l colleagues, which will then expand into hopefully other wikis for T-L schools, and thus optimistically across the district. I only know of one teacher using a wiki with her physics 12 class at the Enderby high school; I'm sure there are more across the district, but they aren't known about yet - wouldn't it be great if we were collating these wikis and perhaps expanding contributors/editors. I hope to talk to Moira Ekdahl to see how she coordinates her district professional learning commons - just how does one organize/channel all of those voices? Will that busy professional have time to talk to me?
Tis time. I invite you to peruse my first ever wiki ...
Professional Learning Commons Wiki, SD83, North Okanagan Shuswap Teacher-Librarian Association
Wordle for Ardent Librarian Blog - because it's been fun to play with Wordle and Tagxedo.
I'm a learnin! But why oh why are the two wordle attempts so blurry?
Hey Shannon!
ReplyDeleteGreat post full of positive projection and implementation of your learning. I think the wiki you've created for your community of T-Ls in your district will be a valuable resource. Your energy in creating it, making it a vibrant digital space and your fearless curiosity will help bring this to the masses and make it a community resource, not just yours.
Good use of imagery as well as links (and mentions) of other T-L wiki's you've used as guidance.
As to your wordle being blurry, its because you embedded a "small" version of the image...its blurry because it is so small. If you embedded a larger version (say 600 x 400) pixels, it would look a lot better. But, its all part of the learning right?
Great job of sharing your learning, expertise and curiosity with others!
Aaron