Michael Atkinson

• School: Overnewton Anglican Community College

• Language: German

• Year Level: 7

Context

• One class set of laptops between 3 rooms

• A Year 7 class with 26 students (12g, 14b)

• Wide ability and attitude range

• Restrictive school policy on file-sharing websites

What did you do?

• Created a wiki for students to contribute to

• Students had to contribute 4-5 different items/widgets to their page

• We worked through the language using our text before proceeding to the wiki

• I surveyed students to gauge their response to this approach

http://klasse7inderschule.wikispaces.com

What did you learn?

• For a successful web project, meticulous preparation of instructions is imperative!

• Conscientious students will always be conscientious students and those who muck around will always muck around. But when provided with an interesting, hands-on project, those students in that middle band will come alive!

• Students like it when their teacher can show them something ‘cool’ and new – and they get to play with it!