New Blog and Wiki Tools for Kids

In October, fifth graders are doing an experiential, hands-on group project to learn about blogs and wikis. I've used quite a few standard blog and wiki tools, but wanted to see what the Webworld had to offer in the way of new kid-friendly blogs and wikis. I was not disappointed to learn about two new ones: Pikiwiki and Kidblog.

Pikiwiki I discovered through the Technology on a Shoestring blog. According to their site, Pikiwiki "enables the everyday user to effortlessly create and share media rich web pages, using only a web browser, just you and your private group, or with the world." It's drag-and-drop functionality, and GUI (graphical user interface) make it ideal for kid use. The best part is that teachers can create an account, complete with class-specific groups, and add users all in about 10 minutes. I did it while the fifth graders were surfing the net trying to find out what the difference between blogs and wikis might be. Pikiwiki will be one of two options from which the students can use to create a debate-space for arguments pro-and con-Native American "relocation" a la the 1830s.

Kidblog.org is specifically designed for elementary and middle school users. I learned about it via a simple Google Search. They are set up by CLASS and email addresses are NOT required for students--a really big plus. All you do is either enter users one-by-one and enter passwords, or create a simple Excel (CSV) file with that info to bulk upload. That took me even less time than creating accounts for Pikiwiki. Teacher can control all commenting and moderate as much or as little as he or she prefers. Privacy is also controlled--they are all set by default to private, but guest accounts.passwords for parents, etc, are easily created. It is completely AD-FREE.

And of course, both of these tools are...magic words....FREE. I'll document the progress made as we continue with the projects.

Nota New Wiki! Yes! A New Wiki!

The August 2009 Issue of Tech & Learning had a Top Tweets section...so I'm kind of lurking in Twitterville without having to actually tweet, I guess. The question was "What's your favorite app?" The usual suspects are featured: voicethread, wordpress, voki, moodle. But in that list there was one new tool and I *think* I like it. Notaland is a new wiki tool that has a much more graphical interface. Students will respond to being able to make it look different than all the other wikis out there. Of course, it's free, as per usual for my criteria. Other neat features: It links automatically to the flickr copyright free images database, and you can tilt/size all those pics onscreen--something some other wikis don't allow. You can then embed those pages on another blog and whatnot. The picture here is me playing around. Neat, huh? I mean, lame right now, but it'll be pretty cool once useful and definitely looks like a different kind of wiki page.

WikiJunior: Egalitarian Elementary Nonfiction

In the May 2008 issue of T.H.E. Journal, they included a blurb about an article called Free Social Media Tools for Educators. In the article, they reference WikiJunior. Here's a snippet:

Wikibooks is a collection of educational textbooks freely available for use (including printing). Textbooks are available in a wide range of subjects, from arithmetic to calculus, psychology to linguistics, introductory chemistry to astrophysics. It also includes various professional development resources, study aids, and a special Wikijunior section for finding books aimed at younger learners.

I checked it out and thought about an exciting school-wide project: Each class could choose one unit per year to create a class "book" about. That would be the evaluation tool for the teacher instead of a quiz or project. Then, that book could be submitted to Wikijunior so that other people could learn from our kids, too. The element of having something published online is quite appealing to the kids, I know, and a good motivation. The real trick of it, however, would be making sure that it's not just a compilation of facts that can be found in any basic web search. It would have to have a "gimmick" or hook that would garner interest and provide a unique framework. I know there is a hub-bub about webcontent not "edited by professionals" but I think that argument ignores the fact that folks online are more than vocal about inaccuracies. Check it out for yourself, maybe.

Cereal as a Cultural Indicator?

I'd like to think I know a cool project when I see one, so when my school's social studies teacher came to talk to me about a sociological experiment involving Breakfast, she had me at "coffee." Her idea is to have her students collect data about what people in various countries eat for breakfast, and then to analyze that data for social, economic, cultural and even religious significance. Awesome, right? We've got the 4 Breakfast wiki for the project set up and initial emails sent out to our World Village partners, it has been posted in various places, now we play the waiting game. Won't you come and play with us?

Using a Wiki for Grad School

Using a tool for my own personal uses has certainly been enlightening. I've created a 1980s Art and Artists Wiki instead of a PowerPoint presentation for my Fiction and Film of the 1980s class (yes, it's a real class). I've learned that it works pretty well if you want to embed youtube movies or even a few widgets or songs files. However, WHY oh WHY can you not center text? Why can't you change the font color and font?? Those are such basics these days? But then, it's free. I shouldn't really complain.

(Cindy Sherman, Photographer)

Is There Such a Thing As A Better Wiki?

WikiMatrix can be used to determine what kind of wiki best suits your needs. They have a cool Choice Wizard that will narrow down the field of available wikis to "free" and "WYSIWYG" (pronounced wizzywig, means What You See Is What You Get). Also allows you to choose the kinds of features you want. Instead of handing in a standard presentation for one of my grad classes, I'm gonna make a wiki instead. I've been irritated by wikispaces lately, mostly because it's not very seamless, lots of glitches. So, I thought I'd try out some other services. I made new wikis on the following sites:
http://atwiki.com/
- Luminotes
- Scribblewiki
- Seedwiki
- Stikipad
- Wetpaint
I have to be honest, there were other choices, but I went with these because I liked the names. There were some other choices like CentralDesktop, Netcipia and Cospire but I didn't think I'd remember those urls!

End results: I liked Wetpaint's "theme" choices. They look less like a wiki and more like a Web site, but their ads were just too prominent and the resulting page was overly busy. Seedwiki, @wiki, Scribblewiki and Stikipad had the same ease of use issues as wikispaces. Luminotes didn't appear to be operational at all. After all that, I didn't really come across any wikis that I thought offered a better service. Have any of you found a better wiki?

Jottit

Thanks to Kathy Schrock, who recently posted on her blog about a new wiki site called Jottit. What makes it great is that it will allow you to create a wiki in about five seconds flat that does not require an email address. You can set it up so that anyone who knows the password (which you set) can edit the site. The home page is so simple that I almost didn't know what to do...there is only ONE button and ONE box. My brain almost could not process the simplicity.

Here's the catch--yes there is a catch. It's not easy to format the text, add hyperlinks, or add pictures. I had a tough time figuring it out myself. It's not HTML, but there is some kind of formatting coding that they use to get things like headers and bullets. Kids could learn it, but it's not as simple as the wikispaces wiki. If you want a class blog that is text only, this is YOUR TOOL!

New Wikis and Nings

Our social studies "Model United Nations" teacher in 8th grade, Kathy Laughlin, created her very first wiki this week. Instead of assigning print research projects, she has created a class wiki to which everyone will post. I'll admit, it hasn't been smooth as butter getting all the kids admitted as users for the wiki. Half of them claim they didn't get the invitation and other kid-related excuses. However, we're getting there. The kids love the idea, because of course they have been raised to believe their life exists on stage and they are all celebrities. We started down an interesting road with them: Why should the school dictate to them what they can create wikis about and what they can't. It led to a whole lesson on public spaces and private rights. Here's the start of their wiki:
Model United Nations Wiki

I will add that the table function in the wikis has been giving me a hard time, as well as the picture functions. It won't let me size images or tables. Anyone else have this issue with wikis?

Creating a Global Village Day One

Exhilarating: That's what today was. I met with a group of six teachers from my school to begin the process of creating a "global village" between our school and other international schools. The level of engagement these teachers demonstrated left me feeling hopeful and enthused. They listened attentively when presented with information about Problem Based Learning and Understanding by Design (thanks to Kim Cofino for the nudge in that direction). They responded thoughtfully when asked, "What role does our American identity play in the way we communicate and how can we make our children aware of their own 'context?'--as one teacher put it.

I have created a page on our school's World Village wiki to document the stages our project undergoes as it blossoms and transforms. You can check out the Agenda for two days of technology training, the essential questions and goals we produced, as well as the evaluative tools we plan to use. At the end of the day, when asked how we could decide if we had achieved our goals, it warmed my heart when one of the teachers pulled out the 21st Century Skills matrix. Her idea was to digitally document how each area of that matrix was fulfilled by the activities we did. Surely you can see all this beauty? Is it just me? By the way...that image you see linked to this post? A student created that logo for our Wiki. Ahhhhh, so lovely.