Thing 7 (Reflections on Wikis)
After viewing several of the wiki spaces listed on our k12Learning page, I have come to the conclusion that I LOVE the idea of wikis! Apparently I have been living under a rock (perhaps in good company), but before this I never really even realized what a wiki was or how I could use it in my classroom. At first glance, here are several things that I noticed about these wiki spaces:
- most wikis are organized much more clearly than most of the blogs I have visited;
- they include more relevant information (or information that I would care to use);
- because most are edited by more than one student, they are less likely to contain grammatical and spelling errors.
I was thoroughly impressed by three wikis in particular. I enjoyed reading the class summaries on the Turn Homeward Hannalee wiki and was so proud to discover that such amazing work was being done with 5th graders on Patricia Beatty’s novel RIGHT IN MY OWN BACKYARD! The class newsletters and the book reviews on the Room 15 wiki were refreshing, and I was totally blown away by the work that Vicki Davis’ students did on their wiki pages, Westwood wikilinks . I’m not so sure that adults would have created such comprehensive study guides.
As for wikis in my future, I see that I can easily create that class newsletter that I have been putting off and post information about upcoming projects or events. Already another teacher and I are brainstorming ways to incorporate the class wiki into our summer reading projects.
Thing 6
I’ve been subscribing to several blogs for about a week now. The amount of information is actually not as enormous as I thought it would be, and I have found Google Reader to be a great screening tool (I can read what I want and then trash the rest). I have really enjoyed reading posts from The Cool Cat Teacher Blog. Ms. Davis has many informative posts, yet they are all readable, entertaining, and strangely relevant to my life at the present moment. Take for instance her post, Are Webkinz just Crummy or a Tool to Use?
I don’t know how often I will continue to check my Google Reader once I complete this course, but at least I now know how to use it.
