Today in our workshop “Advancing Community in the Classroom,” I spoke briefly about ways to introduce collaboration and build community outside the classroom. In this follow-up post, I’d like to gather a variety of online resources together in one (hopefully) convenient place. This post can also serve as a place we can continue our discussions and share ideas we might have thought of after the workshop was over.

Blogging resources:

There are a large number of blogging sites that are relatively straightforward to set up. Two of the most popular are http://wordpress.com/ and www.blogger.com, both of which offer free to use options. If you are more handy and don’t mind getting your hands dirty, you could also try the free blogging software at http://wordpress.org on your own website.

During the workshop I suggested a few uses for blogs, including using blog posts as discussion prompts. They can also be used as repositories for web resources (as I am doing in this post). Have you thought of any more? Share your ideas in the comments!

Wiki resources:

Wikis are everywhere, and here's a list of some example educational wikis that you can browse (most of them appear to be for middle and high school). Why not in your classroom too? There are plenty of free wiki sites out there, such as www.wikispaces.com and www.wikidot.com, both of which are traditional-style wikis. They are both ad-supported in their free versions, however. Again, the more handy among us can install and run wiki software on their own web space (and you can probably navigate the numerous options there better than I could, so I won’t attempt a listing here).

UC Davis has given us another wiki option through smartsite, which offers several advantages to external wikis. First and foremost, it’s already a part of the UC system that every student deals with every day. If you have a class, you have a smartsite page for that class. And if you have a smartsite page, you can add a wiki to it. You can also get support through the campus IT department, which can be important when you need it. This support page has a few pdf files about setting up and using wikis that you might want to check out.

I mentioned a few ways to use wikis in your classroom during the workshop. They can be a great way to do group projects, and you can use the easy linking capabilities of wikis to highlight the connections between different groups’ projects. Challenge your students to make those connections themselves! You can also set up wikis for students to use as collaborative note taking. This gives the students more responsibility while allowing you to make sure they don’t go off the rails. What other ways could we use wikis in the classroom?

Other ideas we discussed:

Internet chat: Smartsite automatically creates chatrooms for each class, so it’s pretty easy to jump right in. You might try using chat for review sessions, discussions, or debates. What else have you used online chats for?

http://www.citeulike.org/ : create and share libraries for students, have students find and share themselves.

Twitter, Facebook, and other social websites: the wonderful 101 Interactive Techniques has several novel uses for these social websites. I didn’t talk about them much during the workshop, but maybe you did! How would you use them for your class?

Now I’d like to hear from you! What ideas do you think you’d try in your own classroom? Did your small group discussions lead to something new and awesome that we should hear about? Maybe you just want to keep talking with each other. Go crazy in the comments!

Other links and citations from the workshop:

101 tips for interactive techniques that can be used in a variety of contexts:

Doolitle, Peter. Constructivism and Online Education

Fink, L. Dee. Integrated Course Design

Hake, RR. Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American Journal Of Physics 1998, VOL 66; pages 64-74

Mintzes, Joel J, James H. Wandersee, Joseph Donald Novak. Teaching Science for Understanding: A Human Constructivist View. Academic Press, 1998.

Tobin, K. & Tippins, D (1993) Constructivism as a Referent for Teaching and Learning. In: K. Tobin (Ed) The Practice of Constructivism in Science Education, pp 3-21, Lawrence-Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.

I’ve tried to gather as many useful links and resources as I could—but I probably missed some great stuff. Add yours in the comments and I’ll keep the main post updated.