This week we were required to create our own wiki. For the introduction of t his assignment we were to go to wikipedia and see if our high school had page created for it. When I looked at my high school page it had students full names on it where other students were making fun of them. I did not like this at all and now I am actually more reluctant to introduce this type of technology. I do not want to show my students how they are able to write whatever they want on a website, where they do not have to post their name next to it. I feel this is a problem for so many types of technology now though.
I am not sure if you have heard about a young girl who was being bullied at school and at home by students writing nasty messages on her facebook page. The students would create people on facebook so they would not have their true identity revealed on the awful comments they were leaving. The girl ended up committing suicide. I am cautious of different types of technology because of this. I think that bullying has been taken to the next level and it is getting completely out of control with the help of the internet and various types of technology.
However I do feel with parental support and teacher supervision technology can be very beneficial for students to use in the classroom. This wiki I created would allow my students to become sensitive to one another and to learn information about one another. It is also helpful to show how America has grown to be what it is today! This wiki will allow students to be able to go home and learn about their ancestral background and then fill in their section on the wiki from home with the help of their parents. I also like the use of the wiki because i have ultimate control over what gets to stay on they wiki and what I feel is inappropriate for the wiki. Over all I think this tool could be very effective in my classroom.
I am not sure if you have heard about a young girl who was being bullied at school and at home by students writing nasty messages on her facebook page. The students would create people on facebook so they would not have their true identity revealed on the awful comments they were leaving. The girl ended up committing suicide. I am cautious of different types of technology because of this. I think that bullying has been taken to the next level and it is getting completely out of control with the help of the internet and various types of technology.
That's too bad that you found people talking about each other on your wiki, and it's also too bad that since it is a small wikipedia page it probably doesn't get checked very often at all so that stuff won't automatically get erased. I do think that wikis can be beneficial in the class though and won't have issues with bullying. I don't think students would bully on the page because it is school related and you would be able to catch them. However, we would be teaching them how to create wikis so they could create their own. I think there are goods and bads, but they are going to learn eventually how to create wikis whether we use them in class or not. I figure we might as well use them to our advantage if we can.
ReplyDelete