Wikiclass

[Addie Gaines]

With 12 graduate hours this summer, I haven't had a lot of spare time for blogging. All my words are going into my specialist project with a 25-page review of research, the other two chapters and other assignments in my other classes. But, I did want to share something that I thought was pretty cool. In our school we have a summer school program that is open to all kids. I had the opportunity to teach a reading to class to students who were all reading well above grade level. So, I wanted to let the kids have the opportunity to apply their reading skills to self-directed learning. We organized our class on a wiki. If you are interested in seeing how it was organized or some of the kids' projects here is a link:
http://mrs-gaines-reading-class.wikispaces.com/

Each student had his or her own page to make a proposal for what and how he/she was going to learn. If they wanted to research on the web, I found links and made a hotlist for them on their page, since the kids aren't allowed to open search at school. We had wireless laptops for each student and we met in the library, so we had access to all the books in the school.

The students presented their projects to the rest of the class as they finished and some students had time to complete two projects. I was really proud of them and they were proud of themselves and really excited about their learning.

[Addie Gaines]

Thanks, Steve. I explained to the students that we were going to have "rights and responsibilities" instead of rules. It works out well, because everyone's rights are respected if students are responsible. I tried to frame classroom situations in that light when there were conflicts of some sort and put the onus on the kids to work it out.

[Steve J. Moore]

I love how the wiki states the "student rights." That focus on democratic learning is sorely needed if we want to engage and empower kids!