Thing 7: Wiki Wiki - Quicky Quicky

After having read Vicki Davis' blog post Wiki Wiki Teaching about her first experience using a wiki in the classroom, I am sold. Vicki is an innovator in using technology in the classroom and her style of writing makes understanding the enormity behind what she is doing easy. We as teachers always fear: Did they get it? Could they apply it? They really seemed to understand what we did but I was right there offering help if needed. What's going to happen when they are asked this on a high stakes test? Have they retained the material and used it enough that they will recognize it then? Will they be able to move to the abstract and answer the questions about the content we studied? Using a wiki can alleviate this fear because the students are doing all of that. They are transferring what they learned to real life application. And once that's been accomplished remembering the content is no longer a concern. They have made it their own. I know that there is research that shows that this type of infused technology is beneficial for students. I wonder what the stats say about how much better a student who has experienced infused technology does on a high stakes test as compared to one who is not. (I guess a hunting I will go.)

I definitely see a wiki in my future. I will be starting a poetry unit shortly and I was kicking around some ideas about a class poem, where each students added their thoughts to a poem I started using a wiki space. After looking over these wikis other ideas have started popping into my head.

http://gowest.wikispaces.com/ My students love Social Studies, so when I saw the link to this site I decided to take a peek. It was an interesting way to have the students collaborate. I like the way the teacher had different jobs set up. Tasks were very clear. I also liked that she used other software programs to help meet the needs of the particular job; i.e. kidspirations and time Timeliner. I just wonder if there are some online tools that she could have used to make the wiki more accessible to the students after hours.

http://kublerreading.wikispaces.com/ I taught this teacher had an interesting way to get her students talking about books. Let the discussion and collaboration take place online.

http://kcountingbook.wetpaint.com/?t=anon In the third grade math Investigations curriculum we have to create a class collection of 1000 things. I thought we could do a similar activity to this kindergarten counting book. It's really easy. I was thinking it would be an excellent way to introduce the class to wikis. A fairly easy activity that would allow them to learn the technology behind the wiki.

http://monsonclassroom.wikispaces.com/ When I saw this I started rethinking my previous idea of extending the kindergarten counting book to 1000. This teacher has a different activity for each month and the goal is to collect 1000 responses to that activity. Another great idea. More for me to ponder.

Right after watching the little video about wikis I immediately wanted to start one for a trip some friends and I were thinking of taking. I was going to start one on one of the sites that Caroline mentioned but I wasn't sure if I'd have to pay since it wasn't for educational purposes. I then remembered FB (Facebook). I immediately went to FB to see if I could start a wiki. I started a new group instead. I thought would be easier to use that rather than email for coordinating our ideas, etc. Don't know if any of you use FB or are a part of a group on there, but I think it's slightly different than a wiki. Everyone who is a part of the group can edit the page but the way it's set up is different. I really am too new at all this to really know. But it's working just like the hands said it would in the video.