WikisFall-1-08

"A **wiki** is [|software] that allows users to create, edit, and [|link] web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create [|collaborative] [|websites] and to power community websites."

I think wikis are cool!

Check these sites out:

[|MediaWiki]

[|PBWiki]

[|Scribe Post Hall of Fame]

[|Seed Wiki]

[|Wiki Search Engine]

Please feel free to tell about your experiences with wikis and add any links (To add a link, click on the World with the link icon and put your link text in the box that comes up.) you feel appropriate. As you add your comments (just click on Edit This Page at the top), I can click on recent changes and see who made them. You can also do this. My comments are in Green. **Please post you comment below mine and put your first name at the end**. Thanks, Barb

Ahhh...this is my first time trying out a wiki!! to my knowledge anyway! I hope that I am doing this correctly. I will respond more later, just wanted to try this whole process out!! :) Laura

This is my first time working with a wiki! It took me awhile to get to this stage of the game, but I think I might be getting the hang of things. At this point, I feel wikis would be great for students other than my kindergartners. They are unable to read and wouldn't have the ability to type out information. I believe it would be wonderful for older students when working on group assignments or for teachers to post important information. Teachers could also use this tool while working together on a specific topic. I am looking forward to exploring this more and becoming more familiar with it all. ~Michelle Michelle, I agree that this concept/activity would be difficulty for students who are unable to read/type. I would imagine though that my 6th graders would love completing a wiki for a project. It would be an easy way to record our classroom "history" or to make notes about their thoughts/feelings/insights during and after a particular activity or lesson. Laura

I have never actually used a wiki before, but my school is in the process of creating a wiki for sharing lesson plans across teams and grade levels. I didn't know what a wiki was until I attended an in-service this summer given by the technology coordinator at our school. She introduced us to many of the Web 2.0 tools that are available and talked at length about wikis. I feel that wikis are a great way to get students to collaborate and share ideas. It's great that teachers can control who as access to the wiki and who is able to update the wiki. I also believe that integrating this type of technology into the classroom will reach students who otherwise might be lost. As a middle school English teacher, I am constantly having to deal with students that don't want to write essays using the "old-fashioned" pencil and paper. However, as soon as I tell the students we are going to type or use the computers to complete a writing assignment, even the child that hasn't turned in a single thing all year gets excited. I believe that wikis have great potential for use in the classroom. --- Jaclyn

Jaclyn, What a great idea....I wish that our school would do a better job with helping teachers have an easy way to share lesson plans and ideas! Laura I agree! We just started RTI last week. With 11 Kindergartens, it's hard to all get together with each other to share activities. This would be a great tool to use to share ideas and activities we are doing for RTI since it's brand new to all of us. What a great idea!! ~Michelle

I tried using wikis before, or at least I think I did. I used Wikipedia before and other types of Web 2.0 like delcious and seen both positives and negatives. The positives I have seen, piggybacking off of Jaclyn, are students who do not like the traditional ways of writing essays or paragraphs really do get excited about using the computer and keyboard to type something out. I have to admit, when I was in school, I never realized how important keyboarding would be. I can type pretty well and I do not have to use the "hunt and peck" method. I believe teaching students early on in their educational process how to use the keyboard and what type of programs are available to students to use for essays and paragraphs are an excellent resource. On the other hand, one has to be leary of what it presented on these Web 2.0 sites. Not all of the information is correct. A lot of personal opinion goes into these sites and may not be valid or reliable source to site. For example, on Wikipedia, after reading a definition of a word, if I feel like adding or deleting something to that definition, I can and it can totally ruin that definition. We as teachers have to make sure that we teach our students to be wise in what they choose to be a valid and reliable source. Web 2.0 is a great resource, but it should not be the be all end all. --- Joe O'Brien

Joe, Now I understand the whole "wikipedia" situation! Both our school librarian and technology coordinator have commented that Wikipedia is not a reliable source for our students to use in research...I see now why; anyone can add their own "thoughts" to the source, thus possibly discrediting the information. Laura

Michelle, RTI is fairly new in our district too and you're right using a wiki would be beneficial. I have to say that I have never heard of them before. When mentioning them to my husband he thought I was crazy. I'm not that computer literate but I've gotten a lot better since taking courses. It seems that Wikis would save a lot of research time if someone had a great website or info they were willing to share.- Becky

I have never used a Wiki before now. I have heard of them before and I do know about a lot the controversy about students using Wikipedia for information from other graduate courses that I have taken as well as discussions with my school's librarians. I had a little trouble with this wiki at first, but now I understand how to use it. I teach first grade, so this could be difficult for my students to use. I see how it could be beneficial in older grades though to have an open discussion about topics. I think students could be introduced to wikis early on and given an opportunity to hold an open discussion with classmates or students in other classes. To begin, I think students should practice navigating through the wiki and then begin adding content. Perhaps with younger students, simple non academic topics could be discussed to gain interest and to make sure that the students understand the protocol, such as "what's your favorite subject?" I think for teachers, the wikis would be very beneficial to collaboration and save a lot of time. --Janette Korenkiewicz

//Oops. Sorry Laura, Becky, and Janette. I changed your color and font and then could not find an undo button. (I don't recall the exact color and font you selected.... sorry) Needless to say, this is my first experience with a wiki. It is pretty neat and there are a lot of possibilities with students. I think my 5th graders would enjoy this. The way kids are today, some of them would probably know how it works! I agree that using technology sparks excitement in my students, who may otherwise be unmotivated to complete assignments. I think Jaclyn is very fortunate to have such a selection of lessons and activities, shared on a wiki. That sounds like a great idea. I also have to agree that using Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Unfortunately, I did not always realize this though. Valerie //  Our tech staff is making a concerted effort to raise our awareness of WEB 2.0 technologies. One of our tech leaders asked me to connect with a national wiki on student art and so last year was our first attempt. We used Voicethread -an online resource with which students can upload their art work and then record a script along with their picture to explain about it. It was a very exciting experience because my students, although nervous at first, were so honored to have their work displayed on the web along with students from across the country. You can see the results at <span style="COLOR: rgb(9,137,220)">youthwiki.wikispaces.org (look on the left down toward the bottom to find Quakertown Community School District). There is also an AMAZING book about all the web 2.0 technologies and how they apply to education by one of the leading experts in the field-- <span style="COLOR: rgb(252,29,128)">"Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web Tools for classrooms" by Will Richardson. I HIGHLY recommend owning this book! <span style="COLOR: rgb(197,63,243)"> <span style="COLOR: rgb(212,43,162); FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">AMY

Wow... I must say this is my first time ever hearing or experiencing Wiki before.I'm still trying to navigate it and see how things work. From what I can figure out, this website would be a great program to intergrate into your lessons with older students. I couldn't imagine younger students being able to access this with projects. As students get older and work together on group projects, they can use this site to share ideas or teachers can even post notes or discussions for homework or extra credit. If teachers are trained how to use this program correctly the possibilities are endless. <span style="COLOR: rgb(112,0,255); FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif">HEATHER

<span style="COLOR: rgb(242,117,24)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(242,130,24)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,250); FONT-FAMILY: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">Other than sites like Wikipedia, I've only visited one other wikispace. Our Classrooms For the Future coach has one that he uses for our training sessions. We have had many discussions about the uses of wikis in our classrooms. I can definitely see the benefits of wikis in English, social studies, and science classes where discussion and writing are key components. However, my colleagues and I are having a difficult time finding specific uses within our math curriculum. We have considered using a wikispace for students to post explanations to open-ended (PSSA-style) questions. However, we worry that once one correct solution is posted, there will be no need for others to add to it. If anyone has seen great uses for wikis in high school math, we'd love the hear them! Susan <span style="COLOR: rgb(242,130,24)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(242,117,24)"> I was first introduced to Wikispace at an Inservice earlier this school year. My school's technology advisor is absolutely crazy about it! At my school, each grade level creates their own page and adds educational links to it. That way other teachers can easily access the web sites. It would also be neat and faster for my students to just log into my Wiki page and click on the site that I want them to go on, rather than me adding the site to all 8 student computers in my classroom under the favorites menu (although I haven't tried this yet)! Heather, a 3rd grade teacher at my school has her students log into her Wiki page all the time for blogging purposes. It seems to be working out well for them. ~MELISSA

I have never had the experience of using a wiki, or creating a Wikispace, but I have heard about it. Right now my heart is pounding and my hands are shaking because I am so nervous that I will somehow delete the information that is already above my response. I also can't seem to figure out how to change the color...I'm sure it is so simple, This seems like a tooI that is neat, but I don't know if I would use a wiki in my classroom, especially because I teach kindergarten and the children at this age would not benefit. However, I feel it might be a nice way to communicate with colleagues, or my team. I'm certain that the upper grades could benefit more by using a wiki. Maybe they can post projects or assignments on a wiki. If this is anything similar to that of Wikipedia, I don't know how reliable this might be. I heard that Wikipedia can be altered by users, and that the information would not be reliabe. I noticed Laura stated the same thing. user:melkerMelissa K.

Okay, I might need some help. I don't think I properly posted my response. Why does it show my user name next to my name? And, I still cannot change the color. what am I doing wrong???? Melissa K.

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<span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,3,0)">I have used Wikispaces in some of my other Wilkes classes. I have not incorporated this technology into my curriculum due to a slow server connection. Someday I would like to use this with my students. Having online blogs and other websites like wikispaces are great ways to get the students involved. Jason Jarrett ======

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<span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,3,0)"><span style="COLOR: #6800ff; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace">I did not realize and still do not realize all that is possible using wikis in the classroom. The physics teacher at our school uses this as his main lesson planning tool. We have Blackboard but he prefers wikis for their usability and popularity. I created a page but have not devoted time to setting it up. I would love to begin using wikis regularly in my classroom. We are about to move into our new wing and will finally have a computer lab to use! The possibilities will be endless!!~Theresa Jackson  ======

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<span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,3,0)"><span style="COLOR: #6800ff; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace"><span style="COLOR: #a700ff; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive"> <span style="COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> **I also have no experience with wikis. I am familar with wikipedia and I know it can be edited by anyone. I think wikis are a great idea for high school or even middle school students. I think my students would really like it. I think wikis would be a great to for a free writing class assigment, I think it would really inspire students to write and be able to edit. . I also think they would be great for a class debate or sharing resources. It is a way for students to learn how to collaborate with each other. I plan on using it in my classroom by letting students share their thoughts and concerns and make suggestions on how we can do things differently. --Shannon N **      ======

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I also have had no experience with Wiki's before and now I do finally know what Wikipedia stands for and what it is. I don't know how much I would use this since I had such a difficult time getting on here and don't think I could do it again if I tried. From what I have learned Wiki's can be somewhat unreliable and I don't know if I would use that in my classroom because I try to teach my students to use sites that are reliable. Now knowing that information can be altered on these sites I am really going to encourage my students to not use them as they don't know how to tell the difference between true and untrue information. I think it might be a good thing for teachers to use as a way to share sites. -- Courtney======