Today's thing is about all things Wiki. Our third grade team is going to have a grade level wiki next year (shout out to KH for setting us up!). The wiki itself will have information that is germane to the entire grade level, then will have links to each individual teacher's page that will have things specific to that classroom. After playing in the sandbox today, I'm excited to use this tool.
I can also see classroom applications for a wiki. For example: we study famous Americans in social studies. I'd love to have my kids read about each person, then add info to a wiki. Groups of students could be researching/reading about different people (lessening the need for a class set of books on one person), reading the wiki to see what's already there and adding new info based upon what they've read. I can also foresee using a wiki for book club groups: writing reviews, responding to what they've read, sharing information on the author or recommending similar titles/authors.
The kids want to use wikipedia a lot when researching. I've always stressed to my students that wikipedia is not the best source due to the nature of wikis. I think once we create a few wikis in class they'll understand this a whole lot more.
Hi Rene,
ReplyDeleteI used a wiki with my students for the first time last year, and it was great! Not ony did the students have a place to share and save their research, but they also learned about wikis!
FYI - we set up a few classroom wikis one year as student online journals...it did encourage the students to write - we had a few lessons on appropriate responses, but much like a blog...the students responded to each other...the neat thing was that on the wiki - we were able to access everyone's writing at one place...I'll be glad to work with you to set it up.
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