I am so excited! I love the idea of creating a wiki. It is funny, I never put two and two together and related wiki's we'd learn about to Wikipedia. I explored all the various wiki's that my computer supported and saw some great opportunities for sudents and staff. I like the fact that wiki's can be set up with passwords so that who has access for adding to the wiki can be controlled. I think this is very important in a school setting as districts are concerned with liability. We currently use Schoolnotes and many teachers post links and homework assignments so that students and parents can stay current. Students work on individual assignments and then post their work in a folder hosted on our internal system. I see an opportunity for teachers to post work in a wiki format and use this technology to further engage students in both individual and group work. Class assignments and group work can take on a new life if I can convince teachers to give this a try. I think that the literature circles our 8th graders are working on could really take off on another level.
As a library, I saw the wiki's that were posted for various libraries and thought I can do this. We have a Long-Range Plan that could be posted, I use volunteers and posting their job responsibilities might bring in more volunteers. I like how easy it appears to link to various pages or internet resources. I think I could definitely beef up my summer reading pages and I loved the way books were presented on many of the wiki's I viewed. I enjoyed one librarian who sounded very enthusiastic about her reading and her presentation made me want to run out and read the books she posted. I can see my summer reading program taking off on a whole new level and it is exactly what I was looking for in terms of sharing books, comments and basically talking books.
Each of the wiki's had their own style. I did notice that some of the wiki's look a lot like Wikipedia. My favorites were not those but the ones with more of an individual style and formatting. The ones that offered other links to related topics, fancy lettering and personal voice really appealed to my style. Each had easy navagational tools which also appeals to users.
I can't wait to show this to some of my staff. I liked one of the historical wiki's that called for student participation and input. I can see teachers setting up reviews, something they struggle with in terms of engaging students. I can also see our Revolutionary Picture Book going online. Oh, the endless possiblities, I can't wait to get back to school tomorrow and begin sharing what I've learned. I'm just not sure how to get one started......yet.
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3 comments:
Thanks for talking about all the possibilities that you see for wikis. Some of them inspired me. I'm curious about your Revolutionary Picture Book - can you explain it?
Our 8th graders create a picture book on aspects of the Revolution. They have to research different aspects of the Revolution and then create a book page explaining in simple language and through pictures the point of view they researched. It is a fun way to research, explore, and to teach about a difficult topic. They go on to the high school and teachers there say they are impressed with what the students recall. The students have also shared their books with elementary students. This is a true test of how successful their books are in explaining their topic. This also takes into account students different abilities and strengths. I am always impressed with how hard they work to produce a book. The entire class creates one book with two, three or four students working on one page. They also have to accurately portray the dress, hairstyle and buildings. Not an easy task. This product takes about one week to complete.
Reading the previous two comments about using wikis reminded me of a Community Service Learning project that our former English teacher had her seniors do. Each student wrote and illustrated a picture book for a first grade student from one of the local elementary schools, and then read it to them. How much nicer it would've been if they had collaborated about the contents and illustrations via wiki.
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