Week 7, Thing #16 - Wiki's

Wow, summer school is pretty doggone demanding this year- it is taking up all my time. But I want to keep up with the Classroom 2.0 and I'm on thing 16, which means there aren't that many left. I have also been running into even more toys and playthings on the internet - facebook in particular. I also heard about Shelfari and Ning, and still want to learn about Twitter - I haven't had the time to explore.

So - Wiki's! Well, I am a Wikipedia queen - I use it especially when researching my radio show. I realize that it's just people writing the entries, but you can always pull out and verify any information on other sites - especially if it is official type information. If it's just gossip, well, gossip may not be so accurate anyway no matter where you get it - even People magazine!

I really like the idea of wiki's for the classroom, particularly the classes where writing is involved: English, Social Studies, History, Economics. And there may be a case for writing in math that could use a wiki - but it's a stretch right now for me to come up with something for the lower level students - they have such a hard time 'getting started'. And when they can't get started, they are content to just write down what someone else has, particularly what I have written down, since teachers are the 'experts'.

Personally, I think it would be a blast to have a wiki with input from all my friends, especially those that travel, with things like restaurant reviews, places to hike and play, things to do on a rainy day, things they find on the internet that are interesting and/or relevant to our lives depending on who we are and how we set up the wiki. If it's primarily teachers, then writing things that come up about classroom management, student learning styles, assessment, using the web - these could be great ways to keep information organized with input from anyone who had additional information on the topic.

I know we tried to start a wiki here at Sonoma Valley HS, but too many people are not really into technology yet, and there doesn't seem to be a guiding organization either, so we'll see if we can't kick it up an notch next year!