Laura DeissApril 28, 2010 EDLD 5306

Week 3 Assignment

Overview

Students today are growing up in a digital world. These "digital natives" learn in new and different ways. Educational technology leaders must learn to “adopt and adapt” to meet the challenges these technology-savvy students bring to the classroom. Learning must be both real and relevant for today’s students.Blogs, Wikis, podcasting, social bookmarking, and RSS feeds enhance our leadership abilities as we strive to improve student achievement.

Last week you created a blog. In this week’s assignment you will create a wiki. A Wiki could be considered a combination of a Web site and a Word document. It can be read just like any other web site, but any number of people can collaboratively work on the content of the site with no special software and very few technical skills. Besides the ease of editing, it is possible to keep a record of all changes and additions made and who made them.

Also, this week set up an RSS aggregator.

Finally, this week you will begin taking steps to prepare for you Internship. You will submit your application for Internship and select a site mentor. Site mentors play an important role in the success of the Internship. Their role is to provide support and direction for interns in their efforts to develop increased knowledge, skills, and personal qualities appropriate to the role of an educational technology leader. The site mentor will assist in the development of your Internship Plan, a requirement of Assignment 5.

During your selection of your site mentor, you may want to set up a time to meet with your site mentor about your Internship Plan to avoid scheduling conflict. Review the requirements of the Internship Plan in your Internship Handbook. Do not wait until after you have completed your draft plan to set up your meeting, but be sure to bring all of the required documents to the meeting with your site mentor.

Rubric

Use the following Rubric to guide your work on the Week 3 Assignment.

Tasks / Accomplished
The evidence suggests that this work is a “Habit of Mind.” The educator is ready to mentor others in this area. / Proficient
The evidence suggests that performance on this work matches that of a strong educator. / Needs Improvement
The evidence suggests that the educator needs improvement in this area. / Not Meeting Expectations
The evidence does not yet make the case for the educator being proficient at this task.
Creating a Wiki / Student successfully creates a wiki and provides required information.
(Maximum 10 points) / Student does not create a wiki or provide wiki information.
(Maximum 0 points)
Creating a Wiki Home Page / Student successfully creates a wiki home page, provides thoughtful analysis of the benefits and challenges of using a wiki to communicate and collaborate with colleagues and thoroughly explains the differences between blogs and wikis and identifies one classroom activity for each tool.
(Maximum 15 points) / Student successfully creates a wiki home page, provides brief analysis of the benefits and challenges of using a wiki, briefly explains the differences between blogs and wikis and identifies one classroom activity for each tool.
(Maximum 13 points) / Student’s homepage does not contain all requirements, and/or student does not provide analysis of the benefits and challenges of using a wiki and/or differences between blogs and wikis and/or identification of one classroom activity for each tool.
(Maximum 11 points) / Wiki home page is not created, and/or student does not provide analysis on the benefits and challenges of using wiki.
(Maximum 0 points)
Inviting Wiki Members / Student invites all members of their assigned small-group to join their wiki.
(Maximum 5 points) / Student invites fewer than all members of their assigned small-group to join their wiki.
(Maximum 4 points) / Student does not invite members of their assigned small-group to join their wiki
(Maximum 0 points)
RSS Feeds and Aggregators / Student completes all aspects of the assignment and provides a thoughtful analysis of the benefits and challenges of using RSS feeds and aggregators for personal and classroom use.
(Maximum 25 points) / Student completes all aspects of the assignment and provides a brief analysis of the benefits and challenges of using RSS feeds and aggregators for personal and classroom use.
(Maximum 22 points) / Student does not complete all aspects of the assignment and/or student does not provide analysis on the benefits and challenges of using RSS feeds and aggregators for personal and classroom use.
(Maximum 18 points) / Student does not complete the assignment.
(Maximum 0 points)
Application for Internship and Selection of Site Mentor / Student completes application for Internship and selects a site mentor. Both documents are posted on the student’s wiki.
(Maximum 10 points) / Student does not complete the application for Internship and/or select a site mentor.
(Maximum 0 points)
Assignment Mechanics / Responses are relevant to course content. Student adheres to APA stylistic guidelines. Writing is clear, concise, and well organized. Excellent sentence/paragraph construction. Thoughts are expressed in a coherent and logical manner. There are no errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.
(Maximum 5 points) / Responses are relevant to course content. Student adheres mostly to APA stylistic guidelines. Writing is mostly clear, concise, and well organized. Good sentence/paragraph construction. Thoughts are expressed in a coherent and logical manner. There are three or fewer errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.
(Maximum 4 points) / Responses do not reflect knowledge of course content. Student adheres loosely to APA stylistic guidelines. Writing is unclear and/or disorganized. Weak sentence/paragraph construction. Thoughts are not expressed in a coherent and logical manner. There are four or more errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.
(Maximum 3 points) / Responses do not reflect knowledge of course content. Student does not use APA guidelines.
(Maximum 0 points)

Week 3 Assignment, Part 1: Creating a Wiki

A wiki is basically a website that can be edited while online. Multiple people can enter information into the wiki and it can be edited from any computer with Internet access. You can also ‘lock” a wiki so that only members can edit, as well as choose to have a wiki that only members can view. A wiki is an excellent tool for establishing and facilitating an online learning community. Through the wiki, community members can collaboratively plan, share information, reflect on the information, and communicate with each other. As is the case with blogs, wiki host sites provide templates that allow users to create a personal wiki in a matter of minutes. Depending on the wiki host site, it may be possible to individualize the template, but it is always possible to personalize the appearance of wiki pages by adding graphics and other online elements.

The best known wiki is Wikipedia, the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet. It represents the potential of collaboration on the web. Currently, edits appear at a rate of around 400,000 a day. Every day, thousands of people who have no connection to one another engage in contributing to Wikipedia with no expectation that their contributions will be acknowledged or compensated and they do so with the understanding that what they contribute can be freely edited or modified or reused by anyone else for any purpose.

For Part 1 of your Week 3 Assignment, you will set up a wiki account and create your home page. Then, in part 2 of the assignment, you willinvite colleaguesto join you in using the wiki to establish an online learning community.

Before beginning, access the “Wikis in Plain English” video by entering the following address in your web address bar: . This video will provide you with additional information about using wiki as a tool for collaboration.

There are a number of sites that host websites. However, we ask that you use one of the following host sites to complete your assignment.

  • Wikispacesis a free, easy to use service to create, edit, and share wikis.

or

  • Goggle Sitesis a free and easy way to create, edit, and share webpages and wikis.

To complete this assignment using Wikispaces

Task 1: Create your Wiki

  1. Enter the following address into your web address bar:
  2. On the right side of the screen under “Get Started,” fill out the first three boxes with a username, password, and your email address.
  3. Next, Make a New Wiki.
  4. In the box next to “Wiki Name,” give your wiki a name, which will be the URL to your newly created site.
  5. Be sure the Wiki Permissions are set to “Protected” to ensure integrity of your work. This will keep the public from modifying anything on your page. Only members of your wikispace will be able to edit content.
  6. Wiki “Type” is optional.
  7. Click “Create.”

Task 2: Set up your Home Page

  1. Before setting up your home page, review the Getting Started with Your Wiki offered in the Help section.
  2. Complete your home page.

Include the following on your home page.

  1. The name of your online learning community
  2. Your name and campus location.
  3. A thirty-second video introducing yourself using the Web 2.0 application, Animoto. Refer to for instructions on how to create your video.
  4. Embed your videoon your home page.
  5. Click ‘Save’
  1. Change the Permissions of your Home Page.
  2. On the left hand side of the screen select “Manage Wiki.” Then from the “People” section, select “Permissions”
  3. From the “Page Permissions” section, enter “Home” in the field labeled “To change permissions for a page, enter the page name”
  4. Press “Go”
  5. Select “Locked” so that only you can edit this page;however, it can be viewed by anyone with access to the wiki.
  6. Press “Update”

To complete this assignment using Google Sites

(Note: Currently Google Sites does not allow you to restrict sharing on a per page basis. In week 4 you will be collaborating with several of your classmates and they will be asked to make edits to one of the pages of your wiki. Because of this limitation, they must have rights to edit ALL pages. However, you have the ability to undo any edits.)

Before beginning, access the tutorial at . This tutorial will give you an overview of Google Sites and explain how to set up your site and edit your home page.

Task 1: Create your Wiki

  1. Enter the following address into your web address bar:http://
  2. Sign into Google Sites with your Google Account email and password.
  3. Select “Create Site”
  4. On the next screen,
  5. Select “Blank Screen”
  6. Give your site a “Name,” which will be the URL to your newly created site.
  7. Choose a “Theme”
  8. Under “More Options,” select “Share with Everyone.” We will change the ability to edit later.
  9. Copy the code as shown on the screen, then select “Create site.”

Task 2: Set up your Home Page

  1. In Google Sites once you select “Create site” you have created your home page.
  2. Click the “Edit” button to complete your home page.

Include the following on your home page.

  1. The name of your online learning community
  2. Your name and campus location.
  3. A thirty-second video introducing yourself using the Web 2.0 application, Animoto. Refer to for instructions on how to create your video.
  4. Embed your video on your homepage.
  5. When you are done, Click ‘Save’

Week 3 Assignment, Part 2: Inviting Wiki Members

You have been assigned to a small-group of five to six of your classmates.Your group assignment and member email addresses can be found in the class wiki for this course, xx/ (where ‘xx’ is your cohort number). Make sure you invite each member of your group to join your wiki. Next week you will collaborate with each other as you develop your professional vita and make comments and suggestions for improvement.

To complete this assignment you will invite your small-group members to join your wiki:

Instructions if using Wikispaces:

•Click on the “Manage Wiki” link on the upper left-hand side of the page.

•Under the “People Option,”first select “Permissions”.

•Make sure “Protected – Everyone can view pages, but only members of this wiki can edit pages” is selected.

•Update if necessary, then go back to “Manage Wiki”

•Under the “People Option,”first select “Invite People”.

•Enter the email address of each member of your small-group using a comma between each email address.

•Edit the message to include your invitation to join the online learning community.

•Press “Send.”

•Finally, during the next week monitor that all members of your small-group have accepted your invitation.

Instructions if using Google Sites:

•From the “More options” button, select “Site sharing.” Site sharing allows you to decide who can view, manage and edit your site. You can also invite others as collaborators to help you edit your site.

•Select “as collaborators”

•Enter the email address of each member of your small-group using a comma between each email address.

•Press “Invite these people”

After you set up your Wiki and completed your home page, record your Wiki’s name and URL in the space below.

Wiki Name / Wiki URL
laurahdeiss /

Next, access the class wiki for this course atxx/ (where ‘xx’ is your cohort number) and record your Wiki URL in the appropriate table.

Finally, answer the questions below.

How do you envision using the wiki to facilitate an online learning community? What are the benefits of using this tool? What are the challenges?

Using a wiki would work well if you were from a district where you had to oversee teachers from several campuses that taught the same grade level. You could get together to come up with vocabulary lists, project rubrics, debrief after a workshop, and come up with directions on how to use new technology.
It would be a way to collaborate with each other that would be convenient for everyone. Sometimes it is hard to find a date or time where everyone could get together. A wiki would allow flexibility for everyone to collaborate.
The greatest challenges are that sometimes written words are not enough to clearly state an opinion. Or if you are not careful words can be taken wrong. Also,the collaboration is not immediate so that some ideas or thoughts could be lost between the wait times from others’input. Editing could be difficult if a person makes an edit and has someone else go back and change things again. It would be counter productive until an agreement is met. It is much easier to deal with that situation face to face in real time.

Explain the differences between blogs and wikis. Identify one classroom activity for each type of tool.

A blog is more of a journaling type of communication. You and members can post comments and read others comments but you can not edit the text or content of another’s post. A wiki is a working document where members can edit and collaborate together on an assignment.
A blog activity would be to pose a question such as what have you learned in science this week or what was the most meaningful to you. Each student could post their answer and could read other student replies. It would be a great review for the class as each student may input something different that would help another student. I have a student whose father is serving in Iraq and it would be nice to have a blog set up to communicate with him. Students could ask questions on what his day is like. What is the country like? Questions about the war that they have.
A wiki activity could be used to create a report on a biome. Assign several students a part of the biome to report on. You could assign students to report on different areas such as; adaptations of plants and animals, climate, food chain, geographic location. The groups could then post to a wiki and help edit the report to everyone’s approval.This would be step one to the learning process. You could work in person with the student while learning the new technology. Step two would to partner with a class in the district, same format different biome. Step three would be to find a partner class in the biome being studied and have “expert” first hand information to share. After that you could be off and running on wiki project.

Week 3 Assignment, Part 3: Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Feeds and Aggregators

For the average web surfer, RSS provides a way to see at a glance if your favorite web sites have updated their content.Rather than checking your favorite web site every day to see if any new content is available, using a simple RSS feed collector program, also called an RSS feed aggregator, you can “subscribe” to the feeds from any supporting site to get this updated information automatically delivered to your computer.