Cycle #3 - action (part III)

For my final action, I continued my Cycle #3 focus on free, widely available, web-based tools. I had experienced a modicum of success with my first two actions using Google web tools (Calendar and Docs) - I received a higher response rate and more active engagement with these tools than in previous collaborative attempts using tools such as discussion boards and email. I was beginning to wonder whether perhaps the Google brand also had something to do with the higher response rate - were teachers more familiar, and therefore more comfortable, with using these tools? Were the Google tools more well-designed than other communication or networking tools out there? To find out, I continued my study with a non-Google web-based tool: Wetpaint wikis. This action addresses both the Inquiry and Instruction aspects of collaboration, as described in my literature review and supported by many researchers (Kinnucan-Welsch, Rosemary & Grogan, 2006; Foster, Lewis & Onafowora, 2005; Fisher, Lapp & Flood, 2005).

As part of the Learning Technology Grant LEO, the teachers at K323 in Brownsville, Brooklyn and COGCA in Far Rockaway, Queens (click on hyperlinks to learn more about these schools), planned to teach their students to become producers of cybertext. To accomplish this, they were to create a web tutorial using a wiki. We considered using Dreamweaver to create the tutorials initially, but the teachers at K323 lacked the necessary software. We researched several different wiki hosting sites and eventually decided on Wetpaint because of its familiar formatting tools (very similar to Microsoft applications) and user-friendly design. The teachers felt that it would shorten the technology learning curve, allowing them to focus more on the literacy learning of writing and producing cybertext. In particular, the teachers at COGCA were less familiar with the concept of a wiki and enlisted my assistance in teaching them about this tool, as suggested in professional development research by several researchers (Richardson, 2000; Fisher et al, 2005; Buly, Coskie, Robinson & Egawa, 2006).

I set up a basic wiki template for the two groups of teachers and then invited everyone to join as Writers, allowing them to add content and use all the tools needed. One thing we realized at COGCA was that the wiki would not function properly with any internet browser; it was necessary to use Internet Explorer on PCs and Mozilla Firefox on Macs. However, most internet browsers are available as free, reasonably fast downloads, so it did not prove to be too much of an obstacle. After the teachers joined, they began experimenting with the manipulation of text, links and widgets. On Wetpaint, there are small banner ads that rotate on the periphery of the screen; these are a source of funding that makes Wetpaint a free host for educational wikis. However, since COGCA is a Christian academy, the teachers felt a unique responsibility to control the content or type of ads that would be appearing on their students' eventual wikis. To solve this problem, we found a link to email the designers of Wetpaint that would block media images and ads.

Collaborative teams must ask themselves during inquiry, what do we want students to learn (Johnston, Knight & Miller, 2007)? This collaboration focused on the quality of student work: 1) what did we expect the students' final products to actually look like (e.g. page names, content, level of detail)? and 2) what types of tech tools did we want the students to include (e.g. photos, video, audio)? Since the abstract of the original grant referred to the relationship between content areas and the arts, the teachers agreed that audio would be essential.

At COGCA, the teachers chose Imeem for all their media uploads. Since their curriculum has more flexibility for interdisciplinary studies (including the arts), the teachers at COGCA expressed their wishes to have the students spend more time on the music and musical theory. At K323, the DOE filter blocked Imeem, so we chose JukeboxAlive instead. This wouldn't allow students to actually embed code for music players in the site; however, through our collaborative experimentation we found that it would allow students to place links in their wiki that would activate a pop-up music player. Similarly, most media widgets were blocked through the DOE filter except for JukeboxAlive.

These teachers were actively engaged in the process of learning in order to teach. Kinnucan-Welsch et al (2006) have stated that this is an essential aspect of good professional development. The teachers experimented with different parts of the wiki in order to come to agreements about what they would need to teach the students and what they would expect of the students. The teachers also invited a few students in their initial steps to experiment with the consumption and production of cybertext by using the sample wiki we had created. This was part of the planned procedures outlined in the LEO (see previous posts for a link to this document) and followed the research of Fisher et al (2005) who believe that teachers must teach according to their research-based plan.

Interested readers can view the experimental wikis for K323 and COGCA by clicking on the hyperlinks in this sentence. By clicking on the "What's New" tab, readers can see the collaborative effort that went into these wikis. As the group facilitator, I added a lot of initial content to model procedures. However, as the meetings wore on, the contributions came more and more from teachers and students.