Reading and Writing Online: WebQuests, wikis and blogs

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Reading and Writing Online WebQuests, wikis and
blogs

• Tilly Harrison
• University of Warwick

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Aims

• Hands-on experience of editing a wiki
• Experience of a (mini) WebQuest
• Collaboration
• Chance to reflect, discuss, evaluate
• Fun

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Overview

• Context
• New Literacies
• WebQuests
• Wikis
• Own Project - years 1 and 2
• How blogs interact
• W.W.W. (Wiki WebQuest Workshop)
• Types of wiki

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New Literacies

• Discuss in pairs or more
• In your context, what are the key skills needed
  for reading?
• How are they changing?
• What are the key skills needed for writing?
• How are they changing?

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Blooms Taxonomy - Cognitive Domain

• KNOWLEDGE
• drawing out factual answers, testing recall and
  recognition
• COMPREHENSION
• translating, interpreting and extrapolating
• APPLICATION
• to situations that are new, unfamiliar or have a
  new slant for students

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Cognitive Domain - higher levels of thinking
skills

• ANALYSIS
• breaking down into parts, forms
• SYNTHESIS
• combining elements into a pattern not clearly
  there before
• EVALUATION
• according to some set of criteria, and state why

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Constructivism

• Schema Theory
• existing background knowledge
• determines interpretation of new experiences
• enables us to make predictions
• Knowledge is organised
• We recognise patterns
• The learner constructs knowledge making use of
  what s/he already knows
• The learner is not an empty vessel
• Collaboration, negotiation of meaning and
  reflection are key for learning

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History of WebQuests

• Started 1995 (now twelve years old!)
• San Diego State University
• Bernie Dodge and Tom March
• Part of teacher training course
• Now a large and growing site with many examples
  for all areas of education

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Definition of WebQuests

• A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in
  which most or all of the information used by
  learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are
  designed to use learners' time well, to focus on
  using information rather than looking for it, and
  to support learners' thinking at the levels of
  analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Dodge

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WebQuests and constructivism

• Built into the WebQuest process are the
  strategies of cognitive psychology and
  constructivism. First, the question posed to
  students can not be answered simply by collecting
  and spitting back information. A WebQuest forces
  students to transform information into something
  else a cluster that maps out the main issues, a
  comparison, a hypothesis, a solution, etc. March
  1998

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Scaffolding

• In order to engage students in higher level
  cognition, WebQuests use scaffolding or prompting
  which has been shown to facilitate more advanced
  thinking
• By breaking the task into meaningful "chunks" and
  asking students to undertake specific sub-tasks,
  a WebQuest can step them through the kind of
  thinking process that more expert learners would
  typically use.. March 1998

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WebQuest essentials

• Introduction
• Task
• Sources

• Description of Process Steps
• Guidance
• Conclusion

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WebQuest Taskonomy

• Retelling
• Compilation
• Mystery
• Journalistic
• Design
• Creative Product

• Consensus Building
• Persuasion
• Self-Knowledge
• Analytical
• Judgement
• Scientific

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WebQuest scaffolding

• Reception Scaffolding
• to help the students get started
• Transformation Scaffolding
• to help the students transform the information
• Production Scaffolding
• to help the students show what they have gained

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Wikis

• Name from Hawaiian meaning quick
• A type of website that allows users to add and
  edit content easily and is especially suited to
  collaborative writing Wikipedia
• Changes are recorded so that previous states can
  be recovered if necessary.
• Accumulative rather than sequential (forums)
• Collective rather than individual (blogs)

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Examples (all free)

• Editthis http//www.editthis.info/
• iewiki.net http//iewiki.net/usr/Default.aspx
• PeanutButterwiki http//mitochondriac.pbwiki.com/
• Seedwiki http//www.seedwiki.com/
• Tiddlywiki http//www.tiddlywiki.com/
• Wikispaces http//www.wikispaces.com/
• Wikiwikiweb http//c2.com/cgi/wiki
  http//c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiFarms

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Blogs

• Name from the combination of web (Internet) and
  log (diary) which became weblog and then we
  blog to give the verb and noun blog.
• A user-generated website where entries are made
  in journal style and displayed in reverse
  chronological order. Wikipedia
• A personal diary. A daily pulpit. A
  collaborative space. A political soapbox. A
  breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your
  own private thoughts. Memos to the world.
  Blogger.com
• Readers of a blog can leave comments but cannot
  change entries.

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Examples

• Blogger http//www.blogger.com/ (free)
• WordPress http//wordpress.org (free)
• Typepad Basic http//www.sixapart.com/typepad
  (subscription)
• Blogware http//home.blogware.com (via local
  retailers)
• Movable Type http//www.movabletype.org (for
  businesses)
• Warwick Blogs http//blogs.warwick.ac.uk
  (institution-specific)

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Comparison
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CONTEXT OF PROJECT

• Chinese students at the University of Warwick.
• 22
• BA English Language, Translation and Cultural
  Studies.
• Advanced Language Skills
• Vocabulary

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Own Project Year 1

• Chinese Undergraduates
• Weekly task to add one word to wiki
• Gradual build up of relevant vocabulary for group
• Generally positive comments at end of year but
  mixed overall - not a clear winner!
• Potential for supporting autonomy can be taken
  further

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Process

• Every week each student - one word from their
  weeks reading.
• Full context sentence and the source reference.
• Definition in a good dictionary.
• Mnemonic using Chinese
• Link to their word on the wiki page for that
  week.
• Make wiki page for word.
• Editable by teacher and peers

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Results

• Enthusiastic adopters to reluctant or
  antagonistic
• First year 30 students - huge range of words -
  not all academic
• Second year 12 students - easier to handle, more
  sense of community
• Mnemonic a burden for some

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Trust

• Wiki requires not only trust in the technology
  but also trust in an on-line community. Jonathan
  Davies
• It provides a platform for us to exchange and
  share words. .. this is also a team work. ZQ
• Our pages could be changed by any other people.
  I think it is very bad. GY

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Positive Comments about wikis

• A very good way to exchange knowledge
• It gives me another chance to see what
  books/materials my friends are reading
• A good chance to have a weekly practice regularly
  - I like the idea of interacting on-line
• I can know how the others feel about my work.
• Its easy and fun to edit
• It made me get used to pay much attention to the
  new words I encountered in my reading

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Example of wiki site
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Example of wiki entry
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Negative Comments

• How to motivate the students to look at the
  website is an essential thing, because last year
  not many people visit the website regularly
• Personally I prefer paper based homework
• I prefer to look up in the dictionary when
  learning new words
• I think it depends on different people. To me, I
  find it did not work very well.
• Can be changed easily by accident and the
  reliability is in doubt
• I just doubt the correctness of those words put
  by students.

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Lessons for the future

• Students need to build trust in the wiki
  community
• Autonomy is also a gradual process
• Wiki and learners autonomy will grow and
  strengthen each other
• Types of wiki offer rich possibilities for
  collaborative projects
• Tasks must be directly relevant (integrated into
  course)

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New direction

• Youd better give a long context concluding many
  useful vocabularies, not only a sentence and a
  vocabulary, in order to let students learn them
  and memory (sic) them more easily.
• Good argument for a text-based wiki - students
  choose and annotate in groups.

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Own Project Year 2

• Move to new wiki
• Weekly task to add two words to wiki
• Fortnightly task to blog a given topic
  (personal reflection)
• Wiki is used for a spokesperson to summarise the
  blog comments
• Wiki can be corrected and changes are available
  for study
• Other projects such as commenting on academic
  texts not so successful.

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WWW!

• Get into groups
• Look at the instructions in the handout
• Do the WebQuest for the area you are interested
  in
• Write up your conclusions on the wiki.

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Todays Three Wikis

• WIKISPACES
• http//newtechnologiesinelt.wikispaces.com
• SEEDWIKI
• http//www.seedwiki.com/new_technologies_in_elt/ne
  w_technologies_in_elt
• PBWIKI
• http//newtechnologiesinelt.pbwiki.com/
• (passwordIATEFL)

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Micropedia

• Vocabulary collections
• Customised for class, subject area, interest etc.
  context sentences, definitions, mnemonics
• Topic / subject area notebooks
• notes on key concepts, examples, questions and
  answers
• Knowledge centre on a specific area such as
  living in (town / campus) for benefit of
  class and future students
• what to bring, where to go to shop / eat / have
  fun, where to find things out,

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FAQ

• Self generated questions and answers
• General questions to do with course content,
  language issues, learning strategies etc.
  Answered by peers / teacher / both?

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Collaborative writing

• Group project work on a controversial topic,
  roles assigned on opposite sides, drafts written
  read and revised by both parties till a consensus
  reached for final document (a contract, peace
  treaty, pay deal etc.)

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Creative writing

• Students collaborate to create a fantasy story
  that has choices at strategic points in the plot.

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Branching Simulation

• Given an imaginary situation, students compose
  choices for action and consequences for each of
  these.
• Could be used to describe stages and choices in
  writing an essay.

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Multi-actor Simulation

• Given an imaginary scenario, a number of
  participants each follow through their choices
  and actions, intersecting at various points.
• Could be used to describe different learners
  strategies to approaching a task or objective
  (such as improving speaking skill).

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Exegesis

• Close reading of a text
• Set text with added definitions, notes,
  questions, comments
• Analysis of news story
• Current news item with added definitions,
  background information, comment

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Contact Details

• Email
• Tilly.Harrison_at_warwick.ac.uk