I remember when I was a classroom teacher (quite a long time ago, I haven’t taught in the K-12 setting since 1998), having new textbooks and being excited that they came with some electronic resources. I remember having a difficult time organizing other resources that I liked to use in my classroom. I started with jotting notes to myself in the margins of the teachers’ manual, but then I developed an extensive file of lesson plans (it takes years to really put that together) with all the resources and where to find them included. There were books, videos and filmstrips in our school library, there were things on instructional television that I could have our media specialist record for me, and then there were some very good 16MM films that I could order by mail from the Media Centers. It was always difficult to time the arrival of the films because you had to order at least two weeks ahead of time and then you could keep them only for a couple of days. Sometimes I would have to adjust my lessons and it would throw the timing for these resources off and I would have to send them back without using them. The public library was also a good source for materials, but it was a 30 minute drive there after school to get the materials and then another trip to return them. All of this coordination of resources was a daunting task... And even with great lesson plans, each year I need to adjust my lessons based on how my students were doing, so it was always changing. And that was long before all the great internet resources and things like TeacherTube!
There were times when the textbook simply did not match my “Course of Study,” which is what we went by back then because there were no Academic Content Standards yet.
When I first learned about wikis, my first thought was “Wow - this is the exactly what I needed all those years ago for organizing my resources!” And after using them for a few years now, I am starting to think that perhaps a wiki would make a fabulous replacement for the textbook. I think you could use the the outline provided by the Academic Content Standards and put together the best possible resources for teaching them. You would have so much more than “text on the page” for differentiating instruction. You could have sections for student contributions and your classroom would become more dynamic with projects. A classroom wiki combined with a good collection of reference books in the back of the room seems to me like it would be a perfect setup.
I realize that this would take time, so maybe a teacher would just begin using the wiki in conjunction with their textbook as supplemental material. I really think that after a couple of years, it would be a much better resource than the textbook.
I think students might agree....
What do you think? I found this article interesting.
