Education Week is running a story titled “Educators Experiment With Student-Written ‘Wikis’: Malleable, Open-ended Web Sites Seen as Aids to Collaborative Learning” that highlights some of the work being done by the likes of Tim Lauer, Paul Allison and others. Here’s a snip that I thought was pretty interesting:
“You can�t do the cookie-cutter essay anymore, because it won�t make sense,” Mr. Allison said.
Many students have taken to using his collaborative-writing wiki, which can be used for expository writing as well more-creative compositions. For instance, on the �discussion� page of the school�s wiki on “Macbeth,” students wrote 20 adaptations of the play’s opening scene, in which three witches in a forest conspire on a coming battle.
In Shakespeare’s version, the first witch says, “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” The second witch replies: “When the hurlyburly’s done/When the battle’s lost and won.”
One student rewrote that exchange this way: “Yo, where we gonna meet at?/In the [sic] Japan, Tokyo, or Mega world?” The second character replies: “When the grasshopper is finished/And the battle is lost or won.”
So many interesting ideas…
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Student written ‘Wikis’ are becoming an easily obtainable crutch for student learning. Some students will believe that the interpretations are correct, when in fact they are just misinterpretations submitted by other youth, unsure of the true meaning. Students should be directed to legitimate educational websites when they are unsure of the material that they are reading so that they are able to gain correct and helpful knowledge.