Friday, September 27, 2013

Teaching Fashion Writing with Wikis.....

As I prepare to leave K-State and become a Professor elsewhere, I am working on preparing courses on fashion communication. While wikis are not really used in the industry (blogs and social media are the most commonly worked with, and taught, technological modes of communication) I decided they could be used to create a class project on different trends in fashion.

Below is a rough sketch of the lesson plan....I will need to enhance it once I truly understand how to work a wiki myself.

1)    Tracking the Trends: Examining the Evolution of Fashion
2)    Undergraduate Apparel Marketing and Design students
3)    Objectives: a) work collaboratively as part of a group to trace historical fashion trends; b) track a fashion trend from its earliest appearance to contemporary use; c) provide five web links that give the reader a textual and visual representation of the trend; d) write a paragraph describing the trend and its impact on contemporary fashion
4)    Contemporary fashion magazines, History of Fashion Textbook, www.elle.com, www.vogue.com, museumofcostume.co.uk, fashion blogs, popular magazines, historical records
5)    a) Go to www.wikispaces.com and create an account. Once you have done so please contact me so I can give you permission to join the group. This should be completed before the end of week one.
6)    Select one of the following fashion trends and add it to the wiki page (animal prints, leggings, pointy-toe shoes, spikes, chains, peplums, neon, body piercings, skinny jeans, sequins

7)    Grading Criteria: selected at least one trend and found 5 web links that provide visual and textual information about the trend; wrote a detailed paragraph describing the trend and how it has impacted contemporary society; traced trend from its earliest historical period and provided references; worked in cooperation wth the group to create a public wiki page

6 comments:

  1. Hi Wendy. I think that it is great that you found a way to incorporate wiki into learning when you state that they are not readily used in the fashion industry. You've created a new way for students to collaborate and learn from one another. Thank you for sharing.
    Carolyn

    West J., West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for Online Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web. San Francisco, CA. John Wiley and Sons.

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    1. Carolyn,
      Though wikis are not really used in the industry, I believe the experience will be good for students since they might encounter the need to work on one in some capacity.

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  2. Hi Wendy. First, let me wish you well in your new adventure! All the best to you.

    I thought you came up with a creative way to utilize a wiki in an industry or topic that is not normally use this technology. In particular, you assignment of having the students trace the history and influences for different fashion trends, with links to appropriate media, seems like a good learning approach for this content. For certain, images would be critical to understand a trend in fashion and having the students trace that trend as a group would allow for collaborative learning. Basically, I felt your design for assignment would allow fashion students to use the wiki to consider real-world questions. As West & West (2009) explain, a wiki allows for more, "contextual learning and real-world problem solving techniques" (p. 2). Well done.

    Holly
    West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for Online Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978047034333

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    1. Holly,
      The assignment should help them gain a better understanding of how a trend develops and the ways in which it might influence fashion in the future. Doing it as a wiki will allow the students to work in a team situation similar to the ones they will encounter when they go work in the industry and have to conduct forecasting work for a design line.

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  3. Hello there Wendy,
    You developed a Wiki plan for a classroom that included teaching how to use a Wiki. Excellent approach to introducing a technology to the student, but keeping it at a realistic level reflective of the current workplace, making it applicable to the student.

    West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for Online Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978047034333

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  4. Michael,

    I appreciate your take on my blog. It is always important to me that I make classroom assignments my students can benefit from when they enter the workplace.

    ReplyDelete