a)      Internet address of my wiki-

http://trenchwarfare.pbwiki.com/

           

            b) Five key issues encountered when completing the project-

1.      Finding accurate information that is reliable for students to be able to use within a classroom environment. That is, sites that aren’t just necessarily www.wikipedia.com based (or similar sites that are edited by anyone) but more reliable in content. www.bbc.co.uk/history had a great amount of information that was highly reliable and most importantly interactive.

2.      When creating a group project, and initially brainstorming ideas, all group members come up with different results. It is then challenging to find a compromise of everyone’s collective ideas and stop disagreements. Time-wise it is often easier to delegate different tasks to people, so that each member can take responsibility for each of their own tasks instead of just procrastinating. We found that group members who were most computer-literate were competent in the actual creation and formatting of the wiki, whereas less confident in computer skills, devised tasks that were challenge and then posting them on the wiki. Allowing self input with group discussion was the key to overcoming conflicts.

3.      Thinking up activities that were actually interesting for our prospective students, was difficult, especially because they had to be independent based, not teacher instructed. We found making the wording short and to the point allowed a greater level of student creativity to possibly emerge, with less menial repitive tasks. Our tasks also are aimed to cater for all different learning styles, which is the key to targeting students interests and best achievements.

4.      Using our skills we have learnt this semester as a teacher, not just a student was also challenging. Meaning, putting into practice all the internet software they we have been introduced to over the semester was what is necessary to us as future teachers but most difficult. We obviously want the students to learn and utilize their own knowledge, so giving them freedom in how they present their results meant fitting into ‘digital natives’ of the future. An example of this is in ‘Task 2’ where students are asked to created a trench. This doesn’t necessarily just mean a model trench, it can mean a digital image or photos within Flickr, the students were given the self directed opportunity to decide for themselves.

5.      Technologically, www.pbwiki.com has some technical flaws that hinders the presentation of the project. The font seems to change back to automatically overlapping when different group members sign in, and this could potentially be a problem to trying to present information to students, if they cant easily read/access task, they will get bored. Perhaps schools may subscribe to a more technologically advanced wiki provider, that students would also be able to acess might solve this problem, because otherwise it has to be dealt with.

 b) Collaborative nature of the project- 

http://trenchwarfare.pbwiki.com is highly collaborative in nature but appropriately so. Our KLA is for year 12 students, so the HSC is individual based so tasks are individually targeted but with group work underlying any problems that may arise. Example being, students have a final essay that is compulsory, this is absolutely necessary for achieving outcomes set by the board of studies. But, how students are enabled to go about gaining and learning the knowledge is up to the teachers direction and giving more interesting tasks that enable social mobility are most attractive to students. Our trench warfare tasks allow students to complete their tasks independently, but also within a group, targeting self motivated completion of the task for their own worth, but also working to gain knowledge from others contributions. Each individuals behaviour is driven by their purposes, and the HSC is hugely important but also not letting down your team members will drive individuals to achieve.