Blogs and Wikis and Kids . . . Oh My!

Teresa Wells, Valerie Kuykendall

Mesquite ISD

Teresa Wells, Valerie Kuykendall

Once Upon a Time . . .

• there was a school

• there was a librarian

• there was a teacher

Everything was serene.

• The school ran smoothly.

• The library overflowed with teachers and kids and overdue notices.

• The teacher was overrun with paperwork and testing and parents.

• It was a typical, run-of-the-mill Texas school.

And then along came Trouble.

• It was called 23 Things.

• It upset the apple cart.

• It caused all kinds of change to happen.

• To the librarian.

• To the school.

• To the teacher.

And no one was ever the same again.

• Not the librarian.

• Not the school.

• And certainly not the teacher.

And this is the story.

• Main Characters: Teresa Wells and Valerie Kuykendall

• Librarian: Teresa Wells (19 years experience, 9 in the library)

• Teacher: Valerie Kuykendall (8 years experience, all in 5th grade)

Teresa’s story

• Wanted to bring Web 2.0 tools to research

• Two teachers took the challenge

• Why not Valerie?

23 Things: New eyes!

The library changed.

Valerie’s Story

• “I don’t THINK so!”

“I blogged last night!”

Valerie saw the light.

• It took a little cajoling, but Valerie came around.

• Teresa taught Valerie what she hadn’t learned yet in 23 Things

• And then Valerie saw what Teresa had been seeing . . .

Why blogs and wikis?

• NCLB standard accountability: STaR Chart

• Technology TEKS

• Librarians often set the standard for technology use in classrooms

• Our students are digital natives

http://www.marcprensky.com

What did we do?

• We planned!

• We set expectations

• Teresa set up the wiki and blog pages

• Valerie got the content of the unit together (Civil War), based on 5th grade TEKS

And . . .• We decided on a date

• How long the unit would last -- how many days in the library, in the classroom, reserved the laptops

• Teresa scheduled the library

• Valerie divided classes into groups of 3 or 4 and assigned them to subtopics (slavery, etc.)

How did we use wikis and blogs?

• To organize the unit, we used the wiki

• http://jrthompsoncivilwar.wikispaces.com

Our wiki

Civil War Blog

• So students could reflect on the unit, we used the blog

• http://civilwarthompson.blogspot.com

Civil War blog

Everything went just swimmingly.

• NOT!

Are you kidding me?

Just to name a few...

• “We can’t get online, Miss!”

• “My laptop’s not charged!”

• “Not a fire drill NOW!”

• “I saved my work! Where is it?”

• “I hate this stupid wiki!” (Mrs. Wells)

But the benefits far outweighed the problems

Lots of learning took place• ...and not just history!

• Lots of technology skills were applied:

• copied, pasted, and cut text; posted on wiki and blog; saved; moved images; made a tab; moved between tabs to access information; searched for websites; evaluated books/sites; linked info; keyboarded

Fifth grade isn’t alone

• Third grade also wiki-ed at Thompson

Third grade wiki

You’ve heard it from us.Now hear it from the kids.

• In their words, written in all earnestness, un-spellchecked and just the way they wrote it.

• When asked which method of research was more effective for them, this is what they said.

• “It’s fun and easy.”

• “I think that letting us use the wiki gives us a chance to have responsibility. By doing the wiki we can show people what we learned, and that 5th graders are mature.”

• “I think it is much more successful & easier to use the wiki & blog.”

• “I don’t really like paper and pencil. It’s lots of work and you can lose your research. While on the computer you can save stuff on it. If we have technology we should use it for a purpose.”

• “I think this is training us for the future. I mean lets face it we are in the computer age.”

• “I think I like the computers better because using teachnoigy helps me better. Also because you get to go to sites, and see other peoples feeling about them”