Discovering Utopia with a Wiki
Another wiki from the class of Ben Wilkoff, (click here).
Similar in style to the wiki mentioned in my previous post:
“The students on the Discovery team are creating a pluralistic vision of perfection in society. They use this wiki to answer all of the great questions of society (What is the role of government, What is the responsibility of the individual, etc.) and come to a collaborative consensus about what a society truly needs in order to reach for perfection and sustainability.”
The assignment spec is very interesting and is presented below. Note the emphasis on linking together. To create a web of ideas, (similar to an ecology).
- The students will use the discussion tab in order to debate their ideas and the history tab to see the evolution of their ideas.
- They will embed media to show their concepts in different ways.
- They will link to one another, creating a web of ideas.
- They will add pages explaining their thoughts, coming together and splitting from one another at times.
- They will adhere to the Discovery Blogging Rules (here), and the rules set out by themselves in their perfect societies.
- They will transform the Utopia Template into a working society of their own creation using multiple types of text.
Interestingly the students are encouraged to talk about assessment and whether their efforts should be assessed or not, (here). This is a useful exercise as it helps students decide what is or is not appropriate content / learning objective etc. Although the students have (narrowly) voted against assessment as an aid a set of requirements has been posted and agreed on:
Each student will create two sets of requirements for their utopia:
1. A set of minimum requirements that they want to get done.
2. A set of ideal requirements that is their goal.
They will base these sets of requirements upon the following categories:
•Discussion •Multimedia •Links •Presentation •Coherence (Makes sense, Lack of holes in utopia) •Time spent per day/week
•Adherence to template
They will get these two sets of requirements approved by Mr. Wilkoff and then they will write them up on a wiki page and link it to their main utopia page.
Then, at the end of the project, each student will conference with Mr. Wilkoff about how they measured up to their ideal goals, presenting what they have done and showing the effort it took to do it.
Finally a couple of other interesting features which highlight the inclusive and communal nature of the wiki.
First off there is a ‘Progress’ area. Basically this is a forum for students to state exactly where they are and where they are going with the project. The students are instructed to post at least once a week to the discussion tab stating the following: what they have accomplished that week or over the course of the project; the next couple of things they plan on doing with the project and anything they are struggling with that someone else can help them with.
Finally there is also a ‘Clean-Up Crew’ which is a list of student volunteers who are willing to help students with creating, editing, and formatting their pages’.
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