Creating A Web 2.0 Classroom
So you want create a Web 2.0 classroom. Here is some criteria we found important:
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No advertisements. We perfer not to have advertisements.
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We allow students to be anonymous and to pick their own screen-names. During one semester, a student who was full time at another school, took a writing course where the instructor required the use of real names. She did not like that.
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Public read access. We feel that when a wiki or a blog is public, students work harder in making their work look good.
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Each course has its own blog or wiki.
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Software has to be inexpensive = FREE.
Blogs
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We use http://wordpress.com. There are no ads and the spam filter is pretty good.
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The blog is configured so that users must be invited to contribute. Students go to http://wordpress.com and register. They can give themselves a blog or not. Also, they can pick a screen-name at that point and choose what is displayed. Once they register, they forward their registration conformation.
- At that point we invite them to the blog as authors.
- Both of us are administrators to the blog.
- A category is created for each assignment.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Chronologically organized. You get to see which students are posting first. | Chronologically organized. Posts are not always in order and finding them can be confusing for faculty and student. |
| Can list posts by tags. | Students do not tag their posts. An administrator needs to be and fix. |
| There is no edit history. You cannot see the revisions the students make. | |
| There is adminstrative overhead in configuring the blog. |
Wikis
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We use http://pbwiki.com. There are no ads for educational wikis.
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Wikis can be made publis or private.
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Each student is asked to email a screen-name from the address they wish to use and are then invited to the wiki.
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Thier screen-name is added to the frontpage as a link. When clicked on, a new page is created so each student gets their own page within the wiki.
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A simple editing assignment is given. This usually consists of
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adding a few lines once they create their page,
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Saving,
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editing and making changes
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viewing the history. (see http://www.matcmp.sunynassau.edu/~glassr/rss/mat101/wiki_exercise.html)
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For team pages, we usually create the link and their clikcing on the link, creates the page.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Students can have thier own individual pages for work. | No page level access for free PBwikis. |
| Teams and collaborative work are easily accomplished. | |
| Easily work for mastery. Faculty can add comments or in-text instruction and view work theorugh the history when the student edits out the comments. | |
| Can see eaisly see and track edits made. | |
| Faculty and students can enable email notification so that they can see whenever a page changes. | No notification of comments added in PBWiki. |
| No spell checker (for PBWiki) | |
| Editor has tables. | Editing for aesthetic effects in PBWIki can be difficult. Current version of the editor is often unstable and doing html sorce level editing is tough. It is often better to cut and paste from word without cleaning. |
Our Use of Blogs and Wikis
| Blogs | |
| The first forray into Web 2.0. This blog was used in subsequent semesters but then that idea abandoned when it was realized that we couldn't repeat the assignments, yet leave the students original work. This was the first use of The Grateful Dead Scientists: Battle Of The Minds Game Calculus 3 , a game deisgned to teach information literacy and introduce the student to discipline related reseach. | http://glassrcalc3.wordpress.com/ |
| The Calculus 2 version of the Grateful Dead Game | http://mat123calc2.wordpress.com/ |
| Blogs used to tie Boolean Logic and Set Theory to Database searching in a general liberal arts mathematics course. |
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| Blog used in a compute science class. Here the students investigated algorithms that had a historical component to them. They did the write-up and pseudo code. First attempt at using Web 2.0 to deal with tangential topics. | http://glassr.wordpress.com/ |
| Blog used to deal with tangential topics, give opinions, act as a repository for code and post homework assignments. | http://cmp220sp07.wordpress.com/ |
| Wikis | |
| A wiki used to teach applications of Database searching, Boolean Logic and Set Theory along with research techniques. Here the students play the History Of The Times game. | http://mat101.pbwiki.com/ |
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A wiki used to teach second year computer science course. Both research techniques and programming pronciples are taught. A idea used here is that a question (page is created) on a tangential topic and the first student that correctly edits the page with the answer, receives the credit. |
http://cmp207.pbwiki.com/ |
| A wiki used to introduce students to the topic of software engineering. | http://cmp217-s07.pbwiki.com/ |
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A wiki used to introduce second year mathematics students the fundementals of discipline related resarch and teach information literacy (The Grateful Dead Scientists: Battle Of The Minds Game Calculus 3) |
Educational Uses of Wikis
From the PBWiki Educator Group
The Web 2.0 Faculty Website
So now that you are in Web 2.0, you probably realize that the old static web page / website just doesn't cut it. So what tools do you use?
Blogs
The blog is best used as your home page / initial presence. It quickly allows you to make posts and annpuncements. Since it is chronological, there is no need to delete old posts. Simply let that post from the fall semester that you are postponing the exam filter to the bottom. Create a category for each class so that students need only click on their course. Make a page for office hours / schedule. Add to the blog roll. links to the course wikis / blogs, help pages, wiki. By the very nature of a blog, students can read your blog as an RSS feed in their portal. For example, see my home page http://profglass.wordpress.com
Wikis
The wiki is where you should put all your static material. Those notes, resource links, manuals, etc are there. It is real easy to get in there and modify the documents and links as the times change. Also, re-organization is easy with the wiki. For example, see my student resource page http://skippingstones.pbwiki.com.
Wikis are also a great place for collaborative work among faculty. They can be used for scholarly writing, committee reports and ideas, group notifications, etc. The ease of editing makes a wiki easy to update and simple to revert to a former version.
Page Information
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Wiki Information |
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