If you’ll recall, a few weeks ago I wrote about the potential to use Pikiwiki with group projects and later I mentioned that one of my students had made her own PikiWiki page. Well, Since then, I’ve had a few more students play around with this site on their own. One student not only created his own pikiwiki, but also took some of his ideas and expanded on the open page that I created. I’ve also had at least one other student who has mentioned liking the site in class. So, I’ve mentioned to the students that their last assignment for the semester is going to be a visual argument and that we’re going to be doing brief presentations on their visual argument. Therefore, I get to experiment with pikiwiki! Isn’t that fabulous?

I’ll be posting a few more times on this subject as we work through this. I firmly believe that keeping up with what’s going on in this unit will give some essential information to me about using PikiWiki in future semesters and I think that this information can help those who are considering using this technology. They’re going to spend only two class periods working on this assignment since it’s a brief assignment and I think that they can accomplish what is needed in the short two days of class. Normally, when I do an oral presentation I spend at least one full class period showing students how to use the technology (PowerPoint, Dream-Weaver, etc.). However, given the ease with which students have already begun picking up this technology, I’m going to see if we can get the discussion and brainstorm of their project done in the same day that I introduce them to the site. I think that this is possible, but we’re going to find out (I have a few “wiggle room” days if it doesn’t go successfully). So here’s the plan for this assignment.

Overview of the assignment

My students have spent the majority of the semester working on an argumentative essay on a specific topic and they will use this topic for their third writing assignment. I am asking them to find a visual aid (YouTube video, poster, visual on a website, etc) that takes the opposite view they argued in their paper. So, if a student wrote about being for abortion, then they can use an anti-abortion sign as their visual aid. I’ve already run each of their topics through the great Google Imager, so I know that finding an image will not be a problem. They are then going to use the sign as a basis for their pikiwiki. They are going to use the image to create a visual/oral response to the image. On their page, they are going to respond to the image using any means they can within the confines of pikiwiki. This gives them the option to:

• Talk about the weakness of the image in an audio
• add a second image to refute the first
• add comments to the image with post-it notes
• emphasize points in text

I’m not giving them an extreme amount of guidance on what to do. I’m telling them that based on the argument they presented in their essay, they need to demonstrate why the visual they chose is wrong. They need to argue, via PikiWiki, for a correct statement of the opposition. For example, if they are using the aforementioned anti-abortion ad, they should point out any fallacies in the argument and refute these through any means necessary. I’ve got a week to nail down the specifics and I want to detail the process and progress of this assignment as it plays out in the actual classroom (these are my favorite types of posts). So, before next Tuesday, I’ll post their official assignment and I’ll be posting on their progress all week (and through any extra time they need).

Stay tuned!