Tuesday, December 05, 2006

e-tivity 8

Let’s wiki!

Now that you’ve explored the “wikisphere” and analyzed wikis, you seem to have a better idea of what wikis are. But that’s not enough! To really know what it’s all about you’ve got to wiki. You’ve seen many different types of social software on this course so far and analyzed them so now it’s time for you to share your knowledge on how these tools can be used for English language learning. Rather than have you create your own wiki as I’d originally planned, thanks to Francesca in BloggingEnglish1, we’re going to contribute to an existing wiki. Francesca found one on educational technologies, which is what this course is all about in the end. So, though it may not be easy at first (as many things in this course have not been), I’m sure you’ll manage and, hopefully, enjoy the experience in the end!

Have fun wiki-ing!

Sarah

Purpose: To contribute to a public wiki on educational technologies to better understand what wiki-ing is about and to write about what you’ve learned so far in this course.

Task:

1 – Go to edutech wiki. Take a look around. Read the various introductions, notes to editors, etc. Click on the All Pages button on the left and take a look at some of the pages on the wiki to better understand their style and structure.

2 – Choose a page you’d like to contribute to. Start taking notes on what you could contribute to the wiki.

3 – Write a comment to this post letting us all know which page you intend to edit.

4 – Search the Net for sources to back up what you would like to say (and don’t only use Wikipedia as a resource!). If you search, for example, in Google looking only for the domain .edu and the filetype .pdf, you will most likely find academic papers on your topic.

5 – Write your contribution in a Word file and the paste it into the wiki. Be clear and concise and remember to cite your sources. All you have to do is register (upper right-hand corner) and then click on the “edit” button on the page you’d like to edit, then copy your text into the wiki and click on the “save” button. And voilà you’ve contributed to a wiki.

N.B. You’re more than welcome to contribute to a page together, i.e. to collaborate before posting your contribution. Just make sure each one of you adds something of their own. You can communicate online via one of your personal blogs. One person makes a post and the other(s) comments.

Respond: Given the fact that Friday is a holiday, and many, like me, will be away, you will not have to “Respond” this week. However, some time before the next lesson, please make a post to your blog in which you reflect on the wiki experience. We will “Respond” in class!

Timeline: Monday, December 11

7 comments:

isaperini said...

Dear Sarah,

If I do not change my mind, I would like to edit the page on "Websites". In particular I was thinking of writing something about websites as a genre and as a new way of learning a language. This is my initial idea. However, if I change my mind I'll write another comment to you.

Have a nice holiday,
Isabella

Sarah said...

Dear Isabella,

Sounds good to me. I can't wait to see what you write.

You have a nice holiday too - we all need one!

Sarah

Luigina said...

Dear Sarah,

I'd like to write something on "Language learning" there's not material about it, almost nothing. I think I add something about language learning through technology such as podcasting, social bookmarking - they already put links about blogs and wikis - , however I'like to improve this topic given that it is what we're doing in our course.
What do you think about?

Yes, we need a holiday!!!

Bye
Lara

Sarah said...

Dear Lara,

I think you could go to one of the existing pages, such as the ones you listed above, and add a section on "Educational Usage in Language Learning". Sound good?

I can't wait to see what you all come up with :-)

Sarah

Fedora said...

Dear Sarah,

I would like to contribute to the page of "Programmed instruction" because I think it is very interesting.

I did a research on my own, but, please, let me know about my mistakes because I'm not very fond of the subject.

Have a nice little holiday.

Francesca

Alice said...

Dear Sarah,

I'm trying to give my contribution to the article "E-tutoring" mainly because we've been experiencing it with your Blogging English 1 course but also because I saw it lacked any information.

My personal impressions made of our course obviously aren't enough to contribute to a public wiki so I've already made some searches on the web.

I hope it will be useful!

Have a nice weekend!
Alice

isaperini said...

I just wanted to say that in these days I concentrated more on the topic "websites as a new way of learning a language" so in the page 'Website' I will edit just this part, instead of editing also the part on "the genre of websites". Also because we have already done an e-tivity about that.

Isabella