Thing #14

The video of Wikis in Plain English was really helpful because I didn't quite have a grasp on wikis until now. I've heard about them and have visited Wikipedia, but that was the extent of my experience. After reading Wiki Wiki Teaching, I do think there will be wikis in my future. I'm already thinking of a way I could use one for my fall masters class. We will be doing a leadership task, so a wiki would be a great way to communicate with the team with which I'll be working. Ms. Davis' experience with wikis was amazing. The way she incorporated one to get two of her classes to collaborate on an assignment was remarkable. The study guides were really resourceful. After reading her comments, I realized it was from 2005! I'm so behind the times!
I explored several of the suggested wikis because I just couldn't stop. Some were pretty complicated, but one of my favorite was Salute to Seuss. I love the idea of the students book sharing, read alouds, and highlights from the Seuss books. I will share this idea with my 4th grade colleague who is also working towards her library certification. The Code Blue wiki was so innovative and fun! I'm amazed at what kids can do when given high expectations to run with. What kid wouldn't want to learn anatomy this way! Go West was also neat and simple enough to follow. I like how it was set up for navigation and the web created by Janie was really cool and I could see the uses easily applied to many subject areas.