What I take from Vicki Davis' blog about wikis is motivation to use them with instruction based on her students' reactions. They were not only excited about using them, but were taking ownership and responsibility of their own learning. I will be using them in the future.
I explored many educational wikis but was more drawn to the ones that I could apply towards my content area & grade level. The Thousands Project was a wiki that promotes collaboration and interaction with others by asking open ended & inviting questions. The wiki Schools in the Past appears to be student centered, where they combined their thoughts and information they gathered to create a learning tool for both students and parents. Both of these wikis are student centered and would be perfect to use with instruction.
Another wiki I explored was Springfield Township Virtual Library. This wiki provided an abundant amount of resources, almost to the point of being overwhelming. While the content is good, the appearance is a bit confusing and should be organized so that it is visually pleasing.
A wiki could be used when collaborating with other teachers, such as in grade level planning. Teachers could collect websites or ideas and others could add to them throughout the week. The wiki then could be used to plan lessons and extensions, as well as used as a tool for cross curricular planning. The possibilities would be endless. It could also be a tool for communication with parents, where teachers could post newsletters or sign up sheets.
Grade-level planning is a great way to use a wiki. I think I might try that next year with my English teachers. As the librarian, it's hard to get into the planning meetings, but if I could only meet with one or two, I could then put my ideas up on the wiki and they could all see what we talked about and make changes to fit the needs of their particular classrooms.
ReplyDelete