I had my fifth and next-to-last visit with Sharon today. I didn’t have anything planned (which has been a consistent fault on my part), and Sharon wanted to know if there’s anything that would be useful to her that we hadn’t gone over yet. Fortunately, wikis came to mind, which is what we spent the remainder of our time working through. It was kind of tough to start with, though, because I had to try and explain the concept behind wikis. I’ve never been the best at verbalizing things (though I’m apparently a pretty good writer), so it took me several attempts to get my idea formulated. It was also difficult because I’m not very familiar with wikis to start with and my conceptualization of how they’re different from blogs is still fuzzy.
Even after I explained it, Sharon still had a tough time getting her head around why anyone would want to use a wiki (or blog, for that matter). She looked askance at such communications because she felt that many of them were rambling (like my own); poorly written; pointless; and self-centered, all of which characterize many, many blogs on the Web, and probably many wikis, too. I think she was too focused on the negatives, though, for a well-constructed blog or wiki can be a very powerful tool. By the end of our time together, I think she had a pretty good understanding of the benefits of wikis and blogs and when each is most appropriate to use.
My visit also brought up two themes that have run through all our sessions–conceptualization and patience. First, conceptualization is very important to Sharon, as would be expected with a teacher. I’m often poor at explaining concepts, though, which is a problem. Analogies and common understandings are key to that explaining, but I can’t think of any teaching analogies because I have no experience with them and I feel that Sharon and I really don’t have similar enough backgrounds to get common understanding.
I’ve often been surprised at Sharon’s lack of patience. She’s the type of person that wants the gist of things right away and then moves on to the next thing. I understand where she’s coming from, as I’m the same way, but I don’t think my impatience is as pronounced as hers. Were our roles reversed, though, I might well act similarly. In any event, this impatience makes my teaching more difficult because my poor explanatory skills and her limited knowledge means it takes longer for us to come to an understanding and ends up becoming a frustrating experience. With regards to wikis, I’m not sure if Sharon has the patience to learn the (admittedly limited) syntax required on most wikis for formatting purposes. We’ll see next week, when I show her how to use pbwiki (http://pbwiki.com/).
