"In an online world where language is regularly reduced to instant messaging abbreviations, a group of Westwood sixth-graders is using technology to explore traditional communication, kindling a new love of the written word."
It’s goodbye to “OMG’’ and “IDK,’’ and hello to Shakespeare and poetry.
This new tool in Neil Kulick’s sixth-grade language arts classes at Thurston Middle School is a wiki, a collaborative website that allows students to post work, make comments or critique the work of others, and make revisions in a group setting.
In the traditional approach to writing instruction, the student writes for the teacher only, Kulick said, “like a soloist with an audience of one.’’
But when a student publishes on a wiki? “The audience includes not just the teacher but all of the other students, too,’’ he explained. “And each student can ‘hear’ every other student - now there is a symphony.’’