Wiki homework

Today I experimented with assigning homework on my wiki. We've been studying effective leads off-and-on throughout the fall, and I had previously gathered examples written by their classmates to share with the class. Today I posted some of those on the wiki, in categories, and assigned the students to find a lead that they really liked and type it into the wiki in the category that fit best. My two main goals were, first, to get them to think about the VARIETY of types of leads that can be engaging (since too many of them were writing question leads -- more interesting than just restating the prompt in their first sentence when writing to a prompt, but less and less interesting if too many people take that approach for a given assignment), and, second, to expose them to more good leads by having them posted publicly. (I was hoping that the kids, like me, wouldn't be able to resist reading what their classmates had posted.) It's 10:00 pm, now, and half the class has posted. Pretty good for the first time, I think! (We'll work out the glitches tomorrow. I know not everyone has computer access, and I told the class we'd work something out, but that still leaves about 7 or 8 kids who "should" have posted by now but haven't. Still, I'm really happy to see 13 student posts there to start with!)

My other motive was to experiment with ways of using the class wiki as a teaching tool, and ways of having students interact online without ending up in a quagmire of hurt feelings, etc. This sort of limited interaction, with a very clear academic focus, felt like a good place to start. I DO feel that posting on the wiki added a dimension beyond what we would have gotten without it -- some students will read each other's posts while puting their own up, and also when we share the results tomorrow in class, they'll be easy to display on the overhead projection screen.