What to do with wikispaces?

As I mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts, wikispaces was an ICT that I had heard of in the past but not used before undertaking ‘Managing e-Learning’.  For the engagement activity we were required to participate in, I liked how the lecturers were able to try and maintain some order within the pages to avoid the messiness that wikispaces is prone to becoming.

After utilising more features of the spaces, I have developed a love/hate relationship.  I like some of the aspects and I don’t like some.  I understand that with most ICT’s you work with, there are going to be those that you like and those that you don’t, however, if I were able to choose which ICT to work with in a classroom, I probably wouldn’t pick wikispaces.  The site is too prone to messiness and without proper procedures set in place for a how a classroom utilises the ICT, it doesn’t seem like a good choice for a high school classroom.  It’s also a site that is a little tricky to use and navigate.  I would classify myself as pretty tech savvy and when I feel lost in a website, I know that it’s something I wouldn’t want to introduce to students. 

I definitely do not like that you need to know the username and password of what other wikispace you would like to visit.  In a collaborative school environment, asking youth to remember generic log in details could prove to be an interesting task.  I completely understand that it is possible, but when you’re in a classroom and the last thing you want is disruptions or time wasters, wikispaces could be just the site that allows those disruptions to happen.

Along those same lines, with correctly instilled policies and procedures it could prove to be useful.  Wikispaces is ultimately an online classroom.  Each student could have a chance to talk and the teacher can trace who said what and when they said it and I’m all for utilising more space.  Regardless of how many perks something has, an ICT is never useful if it’s unruly. 

If I were to introduce wikispaces into my own classroom, the students and I would spend the time going over rules and procedures, ensuring that teachers have a copy of generic details to ensure ease of access and simple ‘netiquette’ rules. 

The SAMR model could be used against wikispaces, much like it was used against blogger.  At the substitution level, wikispaces could be used as a virtual pen and paper where students could write their activities down and go back to it later to highlight and recall information.  To further enhance their learning at the augmentation stage, students could work collaboratively to edit each other’s work and continually build on their collaborative skills.

At the transformative stage, to modify and redefine their learning in wikispaces, students could evaluate the work that they have collaborated together on, to move on to other ICT’s and transform their skills.  Wikispaces could be a useful stepping stone in the gathering of ideas, to move forward onto other ICT’s like podcasting or filming.

Though wikispaces could be a useful tool, it is definitely an ICT I would like to become more proficient in so I can ensure that my students and myself are getting the most out of the technology.