1. Twenty First Century Learners<br /> Barrow County, at least in regards to Media Specialists and the use of web 2.0 tools and technology, is still in the Dark Ages. Well, maybe they are not quite on par with feudal lords, knights, and crusades, but they are far behind the current trends in 21st century skills, informational literacy, and informational skills. A more accurate assessment would place almost all of the media specialists in the county, (at least the ones that I interviewed), in the age of President Eisenhower, Wally and Beaver, I Love Lucy, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. About a decade after these events, I was a student at Holsenbeck Elementary School. At that time, the library consisted of the card catalog, books and shelves, Highlights magazines, and a crabby librarian who smoked cigarettes in the back room. Holsenbeck's library was a dark and dreary environment where students were herded in and out, like cattle. The librarian was not very customer-friendly and students who were brazen enough to ask her a question were deemed quot;
bravequot;
by their classmates. <br /> Over the years, computers entered the landscape and the card catalog became a long-lost artifact. The library morphed into the Media Center and hard-wooden chairs mutated, almost overnight, into cozy, comfy seats that invited children to grab a book and dive into the stories between the covers. Card catalogs were sucked into the computer and were dubbed OPAC (online public access catalogs) and the Internet shot to the forefront of education with meteor-like speed. Web 2.0 arrived and we are in the present day, with outdated teaching methods and with teachers stuck in the yesteryear of notes on the overhead projector, pen and paper summative assessments, and strictly quot;
google-itquot;
mentalities. Here we are, trying to catch up, nudging our teachers embrace the new technology so that our students will be ready, willing, and able quot;
digital citizensquot;
upon graduation. <br /> The school I chose to use for this project is Statham Elementary School in Barrow County. The student population is around seven-hundred-eighty-eight students, with sixty-five staff and faculty. The Media Specialist has been on staff since 1997. I interviewed four classroom teachers and two Media Specialists, both elementary school. The classroom teachers all work with grades 2, 3, and 5. All teachers, when asked what children should learn in the Media Center, spoke of instruction in finding books, atlas and dictionary use, finding relevant information on the Internet, and of collaboration with the Media Specialist in the formation of wikis and Web 2.0 type tools that students could use in the classroom and in the computer lab. One third grade teacher said, quot;
Look, every single time I ask her [the Media Specialist] to help my class with a project or whatever, we go in there and she puts in a video and walks<br />away. . . . The same holds true when we try to research. She pulls up her bookmarked searches and walks away!quot;
Another third grade teacher stated, quot;
I'd just as soon stay in my classroom or go to the lab with my class, at least there are people in there willing to help my kids!quot;
<br /> Every teacher I spoke to was willing to use new technology, they just need help in doing so. Mr. D., my fifth grade teacher, mentioned during our interview that a student teacher had asked about setting up a wiki page for a writing unit earlier in the day. They were both excited, but also overwhelmed because he said, quot;
Neither one of us has a clue, we are flying blind!quot;
He was wondering what site to use and he seemed especially concerned about page set up and format. <br /> I interviewed the Media Specialist at another elementary school in the county who stated that her teachers all basically just relied on her to do quot;
the basicsquot;
and that she was collaborating with the gifted teacher to create wiki quot;
newspaperquot;
type pages where the kids can post current events. When interviewing the Media Specialist in my building, I spoke about Web 2.0 technology, wiki, and collaboration and was strictly informed that, quot;
Teachers don't have the time to use or set up that type of stuff,quot;
and that, quot;
it all sounds good in theoryquot;
but, specifically, in regard to wiki use, quot;
I just don't see the point.quot;
When I asked if she had a Smart Board in the Media Center, she stated, quot;
I don't need one, and if anyone can show me what I can with one that I can't do with my LCD and my monitor, I might just get one!quot;
quot;
Where then,quot;
I thought, quot;
do I go from here?quot;
These attitudes have created a faculty and staff who, for the most part, are Web 2.0 illiterate. They know the tools that have been around awhile, like wikis. They also are aware that they can be used, but not to what extent. In fact, they don't know anything about using these tools. For this reason, and because wikis can really be used at all grade levels, I have decided to focus my research on wikis for the classroom teachers.<br /> By definition wikis are, quot;
collaboratively authored, searchable, documents linked internally and externally.quot;
In the classroom setting, wikis quot;
are designed to be created by more than one studentquot;
(Morgan and Smith, 2008). According to Morgan and Smith, four useful types of wikis exist in the educational setting. Classroom wikis incorporate assignments, student work, and communication with parents. Collaborative research can be conducted in report wikis. There are also a host of school wiki sites. A final category includes large-scaled interschool wiki projects (Morgan and Smith, 2008). Wikis can be further broken down into additional categories. (M. Phillipson, 2008 in Cavery and Ward, 2008) placed wikis into quot;
five stages of inquiry.quot;
A resource wiki quot;
is a knowledge form created through collective constructivism.quot;
Presentation wikis quot;
are a communication form for drafts of documentsquot;
fostering group collaboration to produce a finished product for each member. Gateway wikis allow people to get together to discuss a single topic. Simulation wikis involve simulated environments where multiple paths unfold as problems are solved. Finally, there are Illuminated wikis, where students are assigned parts of a whole project that they can work on (Phillipson, 2008 in Cavery and Ward, 2008).<br /> No matter what type of wiki is utilized, collaboration is ultimately the key to success. On wiki pages, users are continuously making comments and revisions, furthering the use of collaboration. According to one source, “Wikis encourage collaborative writing and facilitate the exchange of resources and ideas” (Magleson and Caster, 2008). One student in a New York public school stated, quot;
I went back and forth to my essay every day. I must have revisited it seven timesquot;
(Morgan and Smith, 2008). An example of collaborative work involving wikis in the classroom that would be applicable across all grade levels involves “classroom book talks.” This approach is a “collaborative project” that celebrates “books and reading through a wiki-based idea exchange with students around the world.” Readers are matched with their interests through recommendations that are classified by genre” (Magleson and Caster, 2008). <br /> Another important factor highlighting successful wiki use concerns the allocation of adequate time to students for them to complete their work. quot;
If a wiki is going to be used effectively with elementary school students,quot;
advised Kendra Molen, a Media Specialist in a Virginia elementary school, quot;
you must allow students time to work on the wiki at schoolquot;
(Molen, 2009).<br /> There are a plethora of educational blogs offering information on wikis and their uses in the classroom. Educational Wikis, which is a wiki space itself, has thirty-five pages of synopsis and links to pages created by teachers from around the world with information applicable to all educational grades. Cool Cat Teacher has a blog, with six pages of posts, just on wikis and how different people are using them in the classroom. A third example of a good wiki site on the web is Wiki in a K-12 Classroom, which covers different applications in all grade levels.<br /> Standards for the Twenty-First Century Learner strongly support wiki use. <br /> <br />
![Twenty First Century Learners<br /> Barrow County, at least in regards to Media Specialists and the use of web 2.0 tools and technology, is still in the Dark Ages. Well, maybe they are not quite on par with feudal lords, knights, and crusades, but they are far behind the current trends in 21st century skills, informational literacy, and informational skills. A more accurate assessment would place almost all of the media specialists in the county, (at least the ones that I interviewed), in the age of President Eisenhower, Wally and Beaver, I Love Lucy, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. About a decade after these events, I was a student at Holsenbeck Elementary School. At that time, the library consisted of the card catalog, books and shelves, Highlights magazines, and a crabby librarian who smoked cigarettes in the back room. Holsenbeck's library was a dark and dreary environment where students were herded in and out, like cattle. The librarian was not very customer-friendly and students who were brazen enough to ask her a question were deemed quot;
bravequot;
by their classmates. <br /> Over the years, computers entered the landscape and the card catalog became a long-lost artifact. The library morphed into the Media Center and hard-wooden chairs mutated, almost overnight, into cozy, comfy seats that invited children to grab a book and dive into the stories between the covers. Card catalogs were sucked into the computer and were dubbed OPAC (online public access catalogs) and the Internet shot to the forefront of education with meteor-like speed. Web 2.0 arrived and we are in the present day, with outdated teaching methods and with teachers stuck in the yesteryear of notes on the overhead projector, pen and paper summative assessments, and strictly quot;
google-itquot;
mentalities. Here we are, trying to catch up, nudging our teachers embrace the new technology so that our students will be ready, willing, and able quot;
digital citizensquot;
upon graduation. <br /> The school I chose to use for this project is Statham Elementary School in Barrow County. The student population is around seven-hundred-eighty-eight students, with sixty-five staff and faculty. The Media Specialist has been on staff since 1997. I interviewed four classroom teachers and two Media Specialists, both elementary school. The classroom teachers all work with grades 2, 3, and 5. All teachers, when asked what children should learn in the Media Center, spoke of instruction in finding books, atlas and dictionary use, finding relevant information on the Internet, and of collaboration with the Media Specialist in the formation of wikis and Web 2.0 type tools that students could use in the classroom and in the computer lab. One third grade teacher said, quot;
Look, every single time I ask her [the Media Specialist] to help my class with a project or whatever, we go in there and she puts in a video and walks<br />away. . . . The same holds true when we try to research. She pulls up her bookmarked searches and walks away!quot;
Another third grade teacher stated, quot;
I'd just as soon stay in my classroom or go to the lab with my class, at least there are people in there willing to help my kids!quot;
<br /> Every teacher I spoke to was willing to use new technology, they just need help in doing so. Mr. D., my fifth grade teacher, mentioned during our interview that a student teacher had asked about setting up a wiki page for a writing unit earlier in the day. They were both excited, but also overwhelmed because he said, quot;
Neither one of us has a clue, we are flying blind!quot;
He was wondering what site to use and he seemed especially concerned about page set up and format. <br /> I interviewed the Media Specialist at another elementary school in the county who stated that her teachers all basically just relied on her to do quot;
the basicsquot;
and that she was collaborating with the gifted teacher to create wiki quot;
newspaperquot;
type pages where the kids can post current events. When interviewing the Media Specialist in my building, I spoke about Web 2.0 technology, wiki, and collaboration and was strictly informed that, quot;
Teachers don't have the time to use or set up that type of stuff,quot;
and that, quot;
it all sounds good in theoryquot;
but, specifically, in regard to wiki use, quot;
I just don't see the point.quot;
When I asked if she had a Smart Board in the Media Center, she stated, quot;
I don't need one, and if anyone can show me what I can with one that I can't do with my LCD and my monitor, I might just get one!quot;
quot;
Where then,quot;
I thought, quot;
do I go from here?quot;
These attitudes have created a faculty and staff who, for the most part, are Web 2.0 illiterate. They know the tools that have been around awhile, like wikis. They also are aware that they can be used, but not to what extent. In fact, they don't know anything about using these tools. For this reason, and because wikis can really be used at all grade levels, I have decided to focus my research on wikis for the classroom teachers.<br /> By definition wikis are, quot;
collaboratively authored, searchable, documents linked internally and externally.quot;
In the classroom setting, wikis quot;
are designed to be created by more than one studentquot;
(Morgan and Smith, 2008). According to Morgan and Smith, four useful types of wikis exist in the educational setting. Classroom wikis incorporate assignments, student work, and communication with parents. Collaborative research can be conducted in report wikis. There are also a host of school wiki sites. A final category includes large-scaled interschool wiki projects (Morgan and Smith, 2008). Wikis can be further broken down into additional categories. (M. Phillipson, 2008 in Cavery and Ward, 2008) placed wikis into quot;
five stages of inquiry.quot;
A resource wiki quot;
is a knowledge form created through collective constructivism.quot;
Presentation wikis quot;
are a communication form for drafts of documentsquot;
fostering group collaboration to produce a finished product for each member. Gateway wikis allow people to get together to discuss a single topic. Simulation wikis involve simulated environments where multiple paths unfold as problems are solved. Finally, there are Illuminated wikis, where students are assigned parts of a whole project that they can work on (Phillipson, 2008 in Cavery and Ward, 2008).<br /> No matter what type of wiki is utilized, collaboration is ultimately the key to success. On wiki pages, users are continuously making comments and revisions, furthering the use of collaboration. According to one source, “Wikis encourage collaborative writing and facilitate the exchange of resources and ideas” (Magleson and Caster, 2008). One student in a New York public school stated, quot;
I went back and forth to my essay every day. I must have revisited it seven timesquot;
(Morgan and Smith, 2008). An example of collaborative work involving wikis in the classroom that would be applicable across all grade levels involves “classroom book talks.” This approach is a “collaborative project” that celebrates “books and reading through a wiki-based idea exchange with students around the world.” Readers are matched with their interests through recommendations that are classified by genre” (Magleson and Caster, 2008). <br /> Another important factor highlighting successful wiki use concerns the allocation of adequate time to students for them to complete their work. quot;
If a wiki is going to be used effectively with elementary school students,quot;
advised Kendra Molen, a Media Specialist in a Virginia elementary school, quot;
you must allow students time to work on the wiki at schoolquot;
(Molen, 2009).<br /> There are a plethora of educational blogs offering information on wikis and their uses in the classroom. Educational Wikis, which is a wiki space itself, has thirty-five pages of synopsis and links to pages created by teachers from around the world with information applicable to all educational grades. Cool Cat Teacher has a blog, with six pages of posts, just on wikis and how different people are using them in the classroom. A third example of a good wiki site on the web is Wiki in a K-12 Classroom, which covers different applications in all grade levels.<br /> Standards for the Twenty-First Century Learner strongly support wiki use. <br /> <br />](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/twentyfirstcenturylearners-100823211257-phpapp01/85/Twenty-first-century-learners-1-320.jpg)
