WikisSummer10_ING

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: Article from T.H.E. Journal about wikis [|PBWiki] [|Scribe Post Hall of Fame] [|Wiki Search Engine] 

Please feel free to tell about your experiences with wikis or how you used them or would like to use them in your classroom. Add any links you feel are appropriate. (To add a link, click the "Link" icon and put your link text in the box that comes up.) 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 blue. **Please post your comment below mine and put your first name at the end**. Thanks, Barb

I have never used a wiki before. I vaguely remembering hearing about them but I am not very familiar with them. I don't know if it would be possible for me to utilize this in my classroom. Third grade is a bit young to use something like this in my opinion. On Study Island our students have the capability to send me messages and my experience is that they are usually nonsense. I think if I had a top group that was more focused I would be able to use something like this. Also, at this point I do not have classroom computers and some of my students do not have Internet access at home. I do think this is a fun way to get students involved with relaying information and research just not at my age group. Dave

I have not used wikis with my math classes. However, my classes blogged this year, so that is my first step in the wiki direction. I think literacy in all content areas is very important. Wikis are a great way of infusing writing in all subjects. The technology component helps to intrigue the students. Several english teachers at my school use wikis to write book reviews and to peer edit essays. My coworkers shared with the faculty that they noticed an significant improvement in the quality of work since their peers have access to read their work. A positive form of peer pressure! -Dana

== I have never utilized Wikis in my classroom and this is the first time that I have used it in my classes.Working with the adjudicated youth I think it would be really difficult to use a program like this in the classroom.The youth having the easy access to communicate with each other could become a safety issue for the facility.Even with constant monitoring the students could plot against teacher and staff and could risk a riot within the facility.However, I do believe that Wikis could be utilized amongst the teacher, staff, and administration of the building.Due to working 3 shifts a day this would be a good way to get communication across to everyone and get everyone’s input in on any issues that are occuring. -Becky ==

== I have not used a wiki in my classroom. I am somewhat familiar with them, but this year I had a hard time trying to incorporate them. For next year I would like to start a wiki for my American history class to use. They would have an easy way to communicate with each other and get answers to questions. It would be a great support network for those students. I like that I can track what is being put on the page, and I could easily link my wiki to my school website. ==

== I have not utilized Wikis in my classroom as of yet. I have heard of them and know some other teachers that use them, but I have not. By the looks of it, I would be able to utilize the Wiki for a variety of assignments. One way would be for the students to communicate with one another about book reviews and for them to add their journal entries to the Wiki space rather than a compostition book. I like this idea because the students can also respond to one another. ~ Erin ==

==Much like many of the others, I have not utilized wiki spaces in my classroom. I have had some experience with it in some of my other online courses. Perhaps it is my inexperience or my lack of formal training, I have found them to be confusing and hard to follow if they are not done correctly. However, I do think that with the correct training, this would be a great resource for teachers and other staff members to share ideas with each other throughout the building. At my school, we have monthly faculty advisory meetings in which we share and discuss concerns with one another. One person attends this meeting and then is to report them back to their team members. The office secretaries then type up a summary of each concern and then print out 45 copies of it. I am thinking that if we created a wikispace for faculty advisory meetings, each grade level could get on and express their concerns and ANY teacher can view it at any point and offer suggestion. I think that this would save on time ( no more meetings) paper, and it would be a great way for everyone to collaborate. I think that this could then branch off and turn into a more efficient method of communicating with one another. I will be teaching 4th grade and I am not sure how I would incorporate this into me classroom at this time, and truthfully I am too new and nervous about trying it. Maybe it will be something that I can try in the future. ==

== I have never used a wiki before, but I have heard alot about them. My friend who also teaches at the same building uses it quite frequently and I have been on it before, but like I said I have never created and used one myself. I think wikis would be an excellent way of keeping your students informed. They can access this wiki page whenever they have questions or possibly post assignments. This would definitely keep things much more organized and confined to one area instead of looking for papers piled everywhere! ==

-Caleb
Heater, I liked your idea for using a wiki for faculty advisory meetings. My district utilizes a drive on our network but this would be a fantastic resource for teachers to share information. Going further, this would be great for departments to use to get information out to department members. Great idea!

Karen

**I have never used Wikis before in the classroom, but it does sound like something that could be useful. For example we read a lot of news articles on whatever our unit of study is. With a wiki page we can do exactly what we are doing here. Instead of having my kids read and write a reaction to turn in. I can have them write their reactions on our classroom wiki and also require a response to a classmates reaction. Wikis can also be used to post assignments and dates for upcoming events.** Rob ​
 * //I have never usd a wiki before either. Some of my colleagues use wikis for their classrooms. I believe that this is a great tool to have at your finger tips, but I don't think that my Kindergartners could use it. I could be wrong. I would need to use it more to see what it could do. I do believe that I could use it to post information for my colleagues. For instance, I could report what happened at our monthly grade level meeting. I could also use it to post notes about up coming events in my classroom for parents.//**


 * //Denise//**

My first experience with Wikis was about two years ago when we were asked to join a wiki for our union. We all sat down and joined the wiki and then we never went back to the site. I can see how wikis can be very useful to a large group of people. It can help to keep people connected or enable them to comment on situations that occurred. If you were in charge of snacks for a soccer team this could be used to have live updates to what will be brought and who. I use googledocs a lot and it is very similar in many ways to this page. You can link documents to many different people and allow them to edit them from anywhere in the world. I really enjoy the almost live update feature. We took notes using google docs in the last class that I took with two of my colleagues. It made it easier to catch all of the information.

Adam

I know that a lot of the high school and some of the middle school teachers in my district have Wikis. At one of the technology seminars we had a lot of the administrators mentioned wikis multiple times. The teachers as well as the students seem to really enjoy using it. I know that the teachers like it because the students can access it at home too. Like Dave though, I feel like my students are too young to use a Wiki. If they ever came up with a similar site that is more user friendly for elementary students, I would definitely use it! Colin

 My experience with Wikis is as a student in another Wilkes class. The assignments for the class and many useful links were accessible through the professors Wiki. This was a great way to access everything I needed for the class in one place.I believe I could find Wikis useful, but right now my district we are just starting to use Windows Live to accomplish alot of what can be done with the Wiki spaces. The sharing of assignments and communication made possible by these types of software makes communicating with today's students and their parents easier and more effective.

Paul

My first experience using a Wiki was when I took a Web 2.0 class with my district. I created my Wiki in hopes to use it with my class this year. My teammate created a Wiki called Rimm'sReview. Her students read book, write reviews, and then upload sound bytes onto the Wiki in hopes that other students can respond to their reviews. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time alloted to incorporate the Wiki into my class this year. In the future, I would like to link to Rimm'sReview and have my students share book reviews, ideas, and collaborate with other students. It's also a great way communicate information with parents. Students love to use Wikis! Rimm'sReview- http://rimmsreviews.wikispaces.com/ ~ Manal

I have never used a wiki space before. I have heard of it and when I student taught, some of the teachers at that school were using it with their students. It seemed to be working well for them. I think I might like to utilize this in the future. I think it would be helpful for students if they have question outside of class that either I as the teacher can answer or even some of their fellow classmates. I think it might be difficult though to monitor it all of the time and have to worry about checking it to answer questions. I know sometimes as im sure others teachers do, once your home from school you don’t want to think about it until the next day. Having something like this available to the student’s means that you have to keep up on what’s happening on it at all times. Also, what if students do not have internet access from home then they wouldn’t have the opportunity to utilize it. So I have mixed feelings about it.

I do not use a wiki in my classroom. I made a wiki several years ago for a class that I took at Wilkes. I do think it is a great way for kids to connect in a classroom. I think it would be a great place for students to come and ask questions to the teacher or other students in the classroom. I do not see me using a wiki in a low incidence classroom. Most of my day consists of teaching early literacy and numeracy.
 * Tracey**

-Amanda

I have limited experience with Wikis. I am familiar with what they are and their purposes. I have used them as a student, and look forward to using them as a teacher. Frequently, my students email me with questions about homework, tests, and lab reports. For a student, a wiki is an excellent forum to share questions and answers with the teacher and other students. Teachers can monitor what information is posted, and they only have to respond to a question once (not 20 times in different emails). My students created their own facebook group in which they interacted and helped each other, but I was unable to monitor or filter the postings. The wiki manages this issue appropriately.

I find that a wiki can be an extension from the classroom. The discussion and thinking that occur in the classroom continue and students can build their understandings.

-Maureen L.

Like almost everyone else, I have not used Wikis. I have vaguely heard of them but not much at all. I think this would be a good way to create a small community in the classroom though as all students would be able to post. I am not sure all that can be done with the wikis, but one class I would like to use it in is my architecture classes. I think it would be nice to upload students brainstorming sketches of their floor plans and have the other students view these and comment on them. Obviously keep the students names off their ideas, but this would allow for many points of view on one idea instead of only having my input for their design. I feel like this would get them more involved in the class community and also make them think on a deeper level and perhaps get some new ideas for their own homes and some ideas that I may have not even thought of myself. Students could comment as the files are updated and constantly be thinking on how to not only improve their own design but others in the class. Adam Killion

I used a wiki in an English class as an undergrad. If you Google my name you can still see some of the responses that I posted. A teacher that has the same position as me, at a different middle school in my district uses this same wiki site for his 8th grade students to post and complete their work. When I found his wiki online, I asked if he minded if I "stole" his idea and he was more than happy to help me out. Unfortunately, I didn't have the confidence to implement it this year, but I intend to utilize either wikispaces, moodle, or both to a great extent next year. From what I understand, the kids really love this format and it keeps everything nice and organized. -Brendan Kerchner