Wikipedia

Full Disclosure: I am a heavy Wikipedia user. While my biggest use of it is often looking up the height or age of a celebrity, many times I have also used it as a jumping-off point for research. If I need to learn about a new unfamiliar topic, Wikipedia is the best place to start for a quick summary of any topic. I think the key to using Wikipedia for research is to simply use it as a starting place and not the absolute authority on any topic.  

As Terdiman’s article points out, Wikipedia does have some issues with accuracy. I was intrigued to find out, however, that its average errors per page is not significantly higher than Encyclopedia Britannica. What I like about Wikipedia is how quickly the information is updated (usually). Wikipedia also features citations at the bottom of each article, so it is possible to see where the info is coming from and further evaluate its accuracy. For this post, I took a look at the Britannica site for the first time. There are no citations. I don’t actually know where their information is coming from beyond being able to see which editor added the information and when. Additionally, I prefer Wikipedia’s simple layout- there aren’t as many photos and links unrelated to the article topic as there are on Britannica's site.

Listening to the podcast about the gender of Wikipedia editors still did not deter me from thinking it is a valuable tool. I was surprised to learn that so few women are editing articles. However, just because women are not editing the articles doesn’t mean they can’t. As a man, I even find the cutthroat practice of deleting other’s information to be turn off. However, as the podcast describes, the ethos of these editors is to make the articles as high quality as possible. I am not sure what the solution is to getting more women on Wikipedia- perhaps just awareness and everyone generally being more kind in online spaces.

Wikipedia can be a valuable tool for students when they are taught how to use it correctly. I will be attempting my first research-based project with 7th grades in the next month, and I know that this issue is going to come up. My goal is going to be to teach the students how to use Wikipedia as a place to start, but then use the citations in Wikipedia or a Google search to verify any information they find. With all the talk about fake news in the media, I think this is an excellent time for teachers to be instructing students of all ages how to find good information and be able to verify its legitimacy.

Blogs & Tweets

Three New Blogs

The first new blog I am following this week is Middle School Matters. The content of this blog varies from instructional ideas to content. I am now teaching middle school, but most of my previous teaching experience has been with older students. I like that I can read about all different topics related to middle school in order to assist in fine tuning my skills in working with this age group.

My next new blog follow is Hunger Games Lessons. My 7th-grade classes are currently reading the Hunger Games in my class. I am using the novel to teach lessons on theme, vocabulary, and figurative language & literary devices. This blog will be a great resource over the next month for supplemental material and additional ideas.

Finally, I started following the Grammar Girl Blog. Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, hosts one of my favorite podcast about language. She frequently mentions her blog on the podcast, but I have never read it before. It looks like there is more in-depth coverage of issues discussed in the podcast as well as tons of other articles. I'm looking forward to skimming through this one.

Five New Twitter Follows

1. @friEdTechnology Amy Mayer- Mayer is a Google Certified Teacher who frequently tweets about issues related to technology and education. 

2. @UKShakespeare Shakespeare Magazine- Frequent tweets obviously about all things Shakespeare. Hopefully, this could be a resource for teaching ideas or articles. 

3. @nhaschools NHA Schools- This is the twitter feed for the company that owns the school where I am working. 

4. @mieducation Michigan Dpt. of Education- This is all information related to education in Michigan. It looks like they have posted some interesting links and info over the past few weeks. 

5. @johngreen John Green- I'm actually surprised I wasn't already following one of my favorite authors. In addition to writing great books, John Green produces tons of education related content (see 'Crash Course' on YouTube). 

Reflection 

Since our last assignment, I have not looked at any of the blogs I followed. While many of them look interesting, with how busy I have been this semester, perusing blogs, unfortunately, gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. Twitter is something I used fairly frequently before this class. When I began my student teaching, I deleted my personal twitter (so that students could not find it) and started a new professional twitter. This class was actually a great way for me to beef up my feed with some new education-related content. I don't tweet very much myself, but I do look through my feed quite a bit. In the future, I would like to get better about actually tweeting and interacting with people on twitter instead of just being a passive and unengaged user.

Web 2.0 & R.A.T.

I am currently working as a substitute, but next week I will begin a full-time position teaching 7th-grade language arts. Previously, for my student teaching experience, I have taught 10th and 11th grade English and 12th grade AP literature.

The acronym RAT, in relation to technology in the classroom, stands for replacement, amplification, and transformation. There are many different Web 2.0 tools that could be used to accomplish these three goals.

Firstly, to replace the traditional poster board presentation or even the traditional PowerPoint presentation, students can use Prezi. I prefer Prezi for presentations because the animations are much more interesting and dynamic. Also, Prezi is web-based for easy access from any computer as well as flash based so it can easily be inserted onto a website or blog. Last semester, my AP lit students used Prezi for their ‘Bible Pageant’ group presentation. Because so much of English literature makes reference to the Bible, my cooperating teacher and I thought it would be a good idea for all the students to have a basic understanding of some of the most important Bible stories. Each group was assigned a Bible story, and they used Prezi to present to the class. In past years, my cooperating teacher had all the group make poster boards, but I suggested we use Prezi. The presentations turned out great with most of the group producing dynamic and interesting presentations that were enhanced with animations and many many images.

Secondly, in the future, I would like to use Wordpress to amplify class journals. By requiring students to keep their journal on their own Wordpress blog, they are able to not only communicate their ideas to me, but also to an actual global audience. I will encourage them to use tag their entries so that other can find and comment on their blog. I think that writing knowing that there will be an actual audience besides just the teacher is very exciting. I was required to keep a Wordpress blog for a class I took a few semesters ago, and when people I didn’t know were reading and commenting, it really got me excited about writing it. I ended up creating another blog the following summer when I was traveling around Europe and blogging about that experience.

Finally, one Web 2.0 tool that could transform learning in my classroom is Twitter. I really want to try teaching a novel and having the students each create a Twitter account to tweet as a character from the novel. I think this would be a great way to get the students thinking about characterization, plot, themes, etc. Instead of just writing about the character, they are writing as the character. Granted it's only 140 characters of writing at a time, but it is a platform that many of the students already use and enjoy. I think it would also be fun to have each student choose a famous author and to have them tweet and interact with each other as those authors. Could you imagine a heated twitter debate between Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde? This could really transform the way students learn about aspects of characterization or about famous authors and their lives and times.