Connecting School Community with Wikis

by | Jun 21, 2011 | Action Research Projects | 0 comments

Saint Albert the Great

Team Members: Roseanne Welte, Catherine Tacchino, Pat Basgil, Tina McLaughlin

Community: Archdiocese of Philadelphia Community Year 1, 2010-2011

Our project is a School wide Wiki that we will use as a communication and collaboration tool. This Wiki will be used to communicate with parents, faculty members and eventually between students. We will use this as a collaboration tool whereby students will work together on projects, editing and revising in real time. Projects will be uploaded to the Wiki for viewing by parents, teachers and other students.

  • At present students are unable to share computer work that they have done in school with their parents at home.
  • Students are unable to work collaboratively on a project outside of school without physically meeting at someone’s house.
  • Presently, our faculty uses a teacher shared folder on our network to communicate with each other. Unfortunately, this cannot be accessed from home or edited by more than one person at a time.
Our ultimate goal is for every teacher at St. Albert the Great to have their own classroom Wiki with their students as members. The Wiki would be used to communicate with parents and students and for students to work collaboratively on projects. At this point, we have started a Faculty Wiki in which faculty members have created their own page. They have added documents, pictures, videos etc. When each teacher has created his/her own classroom Wiki and used it to communicate and collaborate with his/her students we will know our project has been successful.
  • November 2010 – Faculty is surveyed to determine need.
  • January 2011 – Committee meets to decide project based on the survey.
  • February 2011 – St. Albert the Great School Wiki is created.
  • Early March 2011 – Faculty is introduced to Wiki.
  • Late March 2011 – Committee meets to plan an “Out by Four” meeting and discuss goals for project
  • April 2011 – “Out by Four” meeting held with Faculty to facilitate the formation of their Wiki page.
  • April 2011 – Teachers add to their Wiki page.
  • May 2011 – Project presented at PLP culminating event.
  • August 2011 – Faculty meeting to instruct and support teachers in the creation of their own classroom Wiki.
  • August through November 2011 – Teachers will use their classroom Wiki to begin communicating with parents and students.
  • December 2011 – Teachers will make students members of the classroom Wiki.
  • December 2011 through June 2012 – Students will use the classroom Wiki to upload their work and collaborate on school projects.

Teachers have learned:

  • what a Wiki is
  • posting videos, documents, pictures, etc. to the Wiki
  • How to use the wiki to upload student projects and share with parents through the class web page.

We were pleasantly surprised at how enthusiastic our faculty was to implement this project.

Hopefully it will encourage more exploration of other Web 2.0 tools that can be used to communicate and collaborate with families and students.

Right now our project is a work in progress. Most of our faculty have added a page to the Wiki and edited it. By the end of the year it is our hope that the entire faculty will be familiar with how to use a Wiki for communication and collaboration.

St. Albert the Great Wiki

 

About Action Research Projects

Action research is a process in which Powerful Learning Team members collaboratively examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully. Action research is:

  • Disciplined inquiry into a problem or possibility within the school or classroom
  • Collaborative and usually takes place in a community of practice
  • Meaningful, positive, and reflective
  • Data-driven, action-based, improvement-focused
  • Transformative

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Powerful Learning Practice

CEO at Powerful Learning Practice
Sheryl is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Powerful Learning Practice. She works with schools and districts from around the world helping them to infuse technology into their curriculums and by leading other digital conversion efforts. Sheryl also consults with governments, educational organizations and non-profits in development of their various professional learning initiatives. Sheryl is a sought-after presenter at national and international events, speaking on topics related to digital and online learning, teacher and educational leadership, online community building, and other educational issues impacting children of poverty. Sheryl served on the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Board of Directors for six years. She co-authored The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age with Lani Ritter Hall. Sheryl has four children and four grandsons, Luke, Logan, Levi and Tanner and a trio of dachshunds. You can find out more on her blog and on Twitter @snbeach.
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