Wikis for the Classroom

There was so much information to digest about wikis and how best to use them in the classroom that  I had trouble beginning one. Resources I used included the internet and the book by Will Richardson, Blogs, Wikis, Podcast, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms to help me decide. From use as a teacher or school website to virtual tours to students creating their own study guides to be used from year to year, it seems there was no end of ideas for using wikis. After viewing many websites such as SmartTeaching.org for an article on 50 Ways to Use Wikis For a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom my mind boggled at the possibilities. I decided to start my first wiki as a website and will gradually let it evolve. Usually I have students make PowerPoint slides to contribute to making a class study guide, but perhaps this will be my next direction with the wiki I created. Having visited several free educational wikis, I settled upon using Wikispaces because it allows for easy classroom management, which I will explore down the road when I add my first users. For now my district expects every teacher to maintain their website weekly, if not daily. This year we began migration towards becoming a Google Educational Domain which, you guessed it, will require learning all about their apps including making a website. I'm not sure it would be valuable to maintain two separate teacher pages as far as my time is concerned. I'm thinking this will push me into taking that next step and use a wiki more frequently for a variety of uses. The collaborative approach to projects such as making a study guide not only fulfills local, state, and national (NETS-S 1-6) requirements in technology but the ease of use of Wikispaces will allow me to check on who is successfully contributing to a project while making the students accountable for their learning. Now that we will be able to use GoogleDocs for the same collaborative reasons, I wonder which one will survive in my repertoire?

You are welcome to browse my teacher page wiki, TechnoTiger. Find out how I chose the name and check out the virtual tour assignment I created for my grade 4 class.

One More Time

Here I am. Revisiting blogging for the fourth time. As a teacher of young students, I do try to bring in the latest and greatest ideas into the computer class. But, and it's a big but, I can't seem to love blogging or even like blogging. Back in the early 2000s when I first heard of it, I looked it up on the internet. I wasn't interested in connecting by writing with total strangers. I am thin-skinned and easily intimidated by others who are ready to pounce on any mistakes or opinions I may have on a topic. So I dropped it.

Then along came a principal to my building who received her doctorate in educational technology. She created a blog through November Learning where all teachers were required to blog about a professional development workshop or course we took. Out of the 60 or so teachers, everyone posted as required but only one teacher consistently made comments. After that principal left for greener pastures all was forgotten.

Enter round three. My third experience was with our new website at school. It allows for blogging on a teacher page but initially we were expressly forbidden to use it as we did not have an AUP (acceptable use policy) in place nor did my administrators know how to handle one until two years ago. A fifth grade teacher was allowed to use it and report on it. She found she had no way to make the students accountable as parents would object to their students using a home computer/device. Since we don't have enough lab time available for her to have the students blog, it lost its momentum.

Round four. Take a course and maybe I'll learn the value of blogging and how to introduce it into a classroom. Since I have six fifth grades to teach I elected to only use one class and start small. I have two very enthusiastic teachers who co-teach this class and love to try new things. We will use either science or social studies as the main topic and when we have the final lesson put together, I shall blog about it further. For now, we will begin teaching the students about blogging through a webquest from QuestGarden entitled, "Blogging: It's Elementary." My fingers are crossed.