Playing around in wetpaint wiki sites and created my own in PBWorks called ESL Excursions
I created a wiki to provide a workspace for teachers in my dept to use as a reference for providing information for class incursions and excursions. (For those who don’t know, the term incursion here in Oz means when a speaker comes to class and gives a presentation, not – as is written in the oxford dictionary ‘a violent conflict’)
The workspace is our central knowledge basse where we can plan and design our experiences for learning English in a variety of different contexts.
Reasons for using a wiki
:
- Keeping updates of information in a central location-a data base for uploading files, comments,skills,worksheets, reflections on experiences etc..
- E-portfolio-storage of possible in/excursion suitable to our program
- to introduce teachers to using a wiki-teachers become learners
- to provide a guided discovery of new ideas to teaching with a community focus
- to assist the learner to construct knowledge from what they know as adult learners
- networking and to foster a richer communication by using an a-synchronous voice in collaboration with one another
- it pools the strengths of many teachers- they can use the wiki as a site for resources, ideas & reflections
- creates learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning & knowledge creation
- develop 21st century literacies, (information, digital and visual, for students and teachers
- Vocational guidance-providing directions for employment options, develping employability skills.
All projects involve change, and change normally means you have to encourage people who are being asked to change into learning the new way of doing things. The project can take on a new life of it’s own by becoming a team effort. It does however require many players to make it work. My passion is to see many teachers collaborating in an online Web2 environment and by doing so-be moving towards a collective intelligence to curriculum development, design and implementation.
