I plan to use a wiki for professional use. After creating a wiki, I am not sure it is the best platform for my ESL students. I am glad I understand the technology and I can use it if I see that there is a clear purpose, but for now I will use it in meetings and for professional use. I created two wikis. One was for personal use. I am going on a short weekend trip with some friends of mine and it was a good way to share information. I collected some pictures of the trip and organized the categories as: menu planning, hotel, entertainment, and packing list. I could see using this in the future too. I got a few replies, but two women only looked and didn't use it as a communication tool. We met last night in person, so maybe they will begin using the Wiki. It is new to all of us. The second wiki I created is for my presentation that I will give at the MinneTESOL Conference in November. This is a conference for teachings of ESL. I am presenting on Learning Strategies and I thought it would be great to have a web page that we can all use. Also, after presentations teachers often want handouts and more ideas so this Wiki will save me from having to send out e-mails that takes time! I hope you like my wiki. I am sharing the second one for professional use: http://andrestrategies.pbwiki.com/
2 comments:
I've been leery about using a wiki in my class too. Mostly, it's because I already use the Moodle class management system and I think using a wiki would be a little technical overkill. But, we'll see. I might have my students create an online newspaper this semester in which case a wiki would be perfect!
I think it's great that you'll use a wiki for your presentation at MinneTESOL. I'm looking forward to it.
Why are you hesitant about using a wiki for your ESL students? More technology to teach? On the other hand, it might be a good place for them to share writing and ideas.
I'm curious about how the wiki-planning turned out for your trip. Did the other women "buy into it" or did they continue to resist using it. It's interesting: we have all these tools, but sometimes it takes a certain personality to grab on and go with it. And time. There's a huge learning curve in some cases.
Good luck at your conference presentation!
BTW, edit this post so that the link to the professional wiki shows up as a link.
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