(Almost) all our content from 2006 to 2017 is archived and available online under a Creative Commons license. Please read this post from June 2018 for more background and updates about our conference and current status.
2006- Week In The Classroom

Week in the Classroom”Wiki Collaboration Across the Curriculum”

Victoria A. Davis
Camilla, Georgia, USA
Blog: http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/

Presentation Title
“Wiki Collaboration Across the Curriculum”

Bio
Vicki Davis is a teacher and technology administrator at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia. She has taught for four years at the high school and middle school level. For ten years prior, she taught professional development courses for teachers and college level adult computer literacy training. She is known for her award winning class wiki, wiki-centric classroom structure, and use of broad scope of Web 2.0 tools to improve student performance. She is a graduate of the Leadership Georgia program and graduated first in her class from Georgia Tech. She actively blogs her experiences at the Cool Cat Teacher blog and has been cited in the Boston Globe and Wired News for her work with wikis.

Description
Vicki loves it when she gets students excited! She loves it even more when she know that she has covered difficult material and the students had fun and retained the information. Vicki has become convinced that research-based think-pair-share and post lesson summarization are employed effectively whether you use paper, oral discussion, or online collaborative learning tools such as the wiki. The basic methodology (and result) is the same although the medium is different.

Last November 2005, Vicki was a scared beginner when she ventured out onto this new Internet that experts call Web 2.0. Within one month, her class wiki was named wikispace of the month and was being recognized as a model classroom for wiki use. But the most profound change was inside her classroom. Her classroom went from a challenging, rigorous curriculum to a challenging, rigorous, and fun curriculum with increased student involvement. Vicki will share what she has done with you in the hopes that you can learn more quickly than she did.

Vicki has done this in two ways: a video with show notes and a live wiki project for YOU to join in. So, if you want to learn something new (and have a sense of humor) we hope you’ll join the presentation. Vicki welcomes feedback on this blog or on her Cool Cat Teacher blog.

Video Presentation Outline:

  1. Wiki Background
  2. Why students need to know how to wiki
  3. A brief overview of the active portion of this project
  4. The pedagogical use of wikis in the classroom
  5. Wiki assessment strategies
  6. Common questions from school administrators

Note: To show you how rapidly things change, this presentation was finished on Sunday, October 15th and on Monday, October 16th, wikispaces has announced a new feature to help with the concurrent editing problem of wikis.

Presentation

PC users right click, Mac users control click to download for viewing …
http://k12online.wm.edu/k12wikipresentatation_LowRes.wmv 18 MB
http://k12online.wm.edu/k12wikipresentation_highres.wmv 41 MB

Supporting Links
Show Notes
http://k12online.wm.edu/K12shownotes.pdf

Wiki Grading Rubric
http://k12online.wm.edu/WikiGradingRubric.pdf

Components of an effective Web 2.0 Classroom
http://k12online.wm.edu/Web20classroom.pdf

Active Project Outline: The K12 Wiki Project
1 – Sign up to participate at the conference wiki project wiki – http://k12wiki.wikispaces.com/
Our live wiki project. Sign up and request to join the space before 8 AM EST Wednesday, October 24th. All project instructions are on the wiki home page.

2 – Team Announcements
You will have your team assignments posted on the wiki Thursday, October 26th.

3 – Wiki on your topic for up to 20 minutes
You will have until Saturday, October 28th to spend two 10 minute sessions editing your wiki. (Vicki will have volunteers on the wiki to answer your questions and help you.)

4 – Awards
Three Amazing judges, Andrea Forte (wiki researcher), Stewart Mader (wiki author), Jennifer Wagner (international collaborative teacher projects) will evaluate and judge the best wiki of this project. (See the K12wiki for their bios.)

5 – Listen in on the skypecast
Winners will be announced at the concluding skypecast (https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=45270%29 on Monday, October 30, at 8 pm EST (October 31 at 1:00 am GMT). Some of the judges will join us and we will give you some ways that you can match your classrooms to wiki with others that match your objectives.

comments

  1. Pingback: K12 Online Conference: Day 1 at teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk

  2. Nancy Scofield

    Great job, Vicki! I really enjoyed your presentation, and I’m looking forward to learning to use wikis. I’ve tried blogs, but somehow have been intimidated by wikis. Your enthusiasm and wisdom are very encouraging. If you can do it, so can I! I’m eager to work with your conference wiki and learn more so that I can integrate this awesome tool into my classroom.

    Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and insights with us!

    Nancy Scofield

  3. Chris Higgins

    Vicki, I really have enjoyed getting acquainted with your coolcateacher information and all of your work with wikis. I even borrowed your “3 year old buys car on eBay” story for our first class blog. In the future, I hope to achieve the organizational skills with my wiki that you have obviously exhibited on your webspaces and in your presentation. Continue up the good work…and thanks for support my blog when I first started blogging. The insight that I really needed to hear about was how you get the kids involved in learning, rather than feeling like you are a website manager. Thanks alot.

    Chris Higgins (Higgy’s Blog)

  4. Pingback: Higgy’s Blog » Wiki-ing with Cool Cat Teacher

  5. Brad Niessen

    Vicki-
    I really enjoyed this presentation……very well organized. I have been teaching Wikis to teachers in our district in the last year and you have shown me what I have missed. I can tell you love what you do and the students you work with.

    Brad Niessen

  6. Vicki Davis

    Thank you everyone for your encouragement and compliments. I am excited that we have 22 educators now signed up for the live wiki project. Most of them are having to do the project from home because it is blocked from their schools (what a shame.) We are excited and look forward to working with this project.

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  8. Danita Russell

    Vicki:

    What a great resource! I wasn’t able to view your session so I’m happy you have opened this up to the rest of us. This is exactly what I was looking for to help my teachers get started. I’m hoping by seeing what you have done, I can get them excited and eager to try wikis.

    Keep up the good work!
    Danita

  9. Pingback: Learning Technologies Centre Research Blog » On the subject of wikis

  10. Cheryl Oakes

    Well, finally during our holiday break, I had time to view your presentation. I liked your descriptions and the easy way to set aside wikis for facts and information and blogs for opinions. Last summer, when I taught a class for teachers, we shared wikis with them. As in shared the idea and how to sign up for a wiki. I am pretty sure that none of my teachers have ventured any further.
    Now, armed with your video presentation , your examples and your rubrics I will present again to those intrepid teachers and by next fall, I will be able to say there are teachers using wikis in our schools. Thanks to you and your students Vicki.
    Cheryl

  11. Vicki Davis

    Just came back to give someone the link for this post. Thank you Danita and Cheryl for the compliments! I am catching up on these presentations too!

    Thank you for your encouragement! This conference was truly a great gift to the world of teaching!

  12. Pingback: Fusion Finds » Blog Archive » Why Would I Want to Wiki?

  13. Pingback: Wiki feedback for a podcast on technology leadership » Moving at the Speed of Creativity

  14. Cheryl Cabin

    Vicki, that was very informative. Thank you. I am presently going for my masters in technology and taking a class about all the emerging technologies. I just finished reading a few chapters in Will Richardson’s book

  15. Pingback: Why Would I Want to Wiki? « Fusion Finds

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  17. Sandra

    I am an old teacher trying to learn news tricks. I loved your video and cannot wait to wiki! Thanks for all the resources to help me get started.

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