Wikis

Add comments to this page and edit other's comments as well. Share ideas about wikis.... how would you use one in your classroom....is it beneficial for students.....how is this a different approach from traditional writing assignments.....how is a wiki different from a blog..... (BE SURE TO CLICK SAVE at the bottom of the screen when you are finished editing/posting!)

Hey, I guess this is working. I absoultely LOVE the finish the story WIKIS I read from the classes. That was such a neat idea. For all the kids in the class to go ahead and keep adding to the hockey story. Then the tennis ball story was neat too. The kids got to choose different varaitions to continue the story. I can totally see that with my class. This is fun! I have been playing on this site for a little bit. Neat! Susan G. ;) Okay, I liked the tennis ball idea (reminds of books that I used to read as a kid). But the hockey story bothered me - very clearly it became a story taken over by teens or adults and it got way too graphic for first graders in my opinion (bears crushing children, abdomens spilling out, profanity. . .) - definitely shows where having your wiki completely open to anyone isn't always a good idea. Jessica G




 * I just had a funny story to add. Last night, I had my husband look up something on the internet. We wanted to know what this certain actress played in. He typed it in to Yahoo and he clicked a site that came up. Of course, it came up in WikiPedia. I was so excited! I said look, I know about Wikis. He said "what are those?" I got to share my NEW knowledge! Yeah! I thought that was so neat! Just thought you all would want to hear that funny story. Susan G. ;)
 * I have not had any experience writing a wiki - although it is something I have always wanted to do. I think it can be very helpful for story writing - so the kids can go in and change the story as you go. It can also be beneficial for writing reports about any issue, person, or idea. It is a great chance for the students to see other kid's work. It is also very cool how they can go back and edit their writing whenever they want. It is also easy for a teacher to read the student's work whenever they want! Laura Bonham
 * Since I wrote that, I have actually started working on a class wiki. We are writing letters, pretending we are settlers that moved into one of the three regions of North Carolina and are writing about how we adapted to and modified the environment. Laura Bonham
 * I was really impressed when I heard that our 2nd grade team at Harris Creek was using a wiki to modify their team time groups as needed. This is such a time-saving way to keep up with who goes where and it's right there at their fingertips! Susan H.
 * My latest wiki goal is for my students to create a dictionary for the class novel we are reading. The students are choosing their own vocabulary words from the book. I like for my students to write their own definitions of words they want to learn and I like for my students to write their own definitions of words they want to learn. This would be a great way to create a class dictionary for the novel. Since it's historical fiction there are some words that aren't common in regular children's dictionaries so this is a helpful way to record (and discuss) those words. Susan H.
 * I haven't used a Wiki in my class, but I can share what second grade has been doing since September or so - we created a Wiki (well, Terri Harbin did - gotta give credit where it goes!) because we were so sick and tired of taking up so much meeting time trying to organize our team time groups. We initially tried passing around a piece of paper with teacher names and what levels we were teaching, but people being tracked out and editing became a big pain. So the Wiki became a great solution. It's very easy to switch a few students around here and there to help with numbers, or quickly realize we don't have enough students with needs in an area to warrent a group. We've now expanded to having discussions about what we should teach for Team Time before creating the groups, and moved into other areas as well (such as discussions of grade level needs). I'm hoping we'll be able to incorporate a lot more into this resource, and cut meeting times down. We've got the Wiki designed to let all of us know if it's been edited, so can quickly see who has already added or not. The only "catch" we've seen so far is that if someone is editing the Wiki, no one else can be on at the same time. Well, let me re-put that . . . someone else CAN go on and boot you out inadvertantly, and if your stuff hasn't been saved, you have to start over. We're working on that. :) Jessica G
 * These are all such great ideas. I'm thinking about doing a story in my 3rd grade writing group and having them work on it at school and at home, where they can edit and post additions to the story. Probably an imaginative narrative:) I love the 2nd grade team's idea of having a wiki for their team. It is so difficult for the special ed team to find times to meet and even when we do we barely get to discuss what we came to discuss. We are trying to figure out a way to divide up our students for next year only having 4 teachers. A wiki would be a great way for us to post our ideas, read each others ideas and make suggestions/edits. This would make our meetings much more effective because we would already know the ideas out there and can be ready to discuss when we walk in our meeting.

 I found some great ideas searching through the wikis. Some ideas were definitely for older grades, but I found a few Kindergarten ideas. Here are a few: Some of these might be a bit much for K, but they could work if we had good family involvement at home and at school (volunteers to help students post ideas during centers). With my class, I think I'd like to start with something simple like the math number idea and then add in the field trip writing idea. Before I even try that, though, I'm definitely going to see how our grade level wiki goes! JUST CREATED IT and am excited to share it!!! I love the idea of using one for team time and sharing ideas! The Teacher Tube video was definitely correct in saying that it would clear up all that input going back and forth by email! ~Lisa F.
 * 1) One of the best ideas I found was a "virtual tour" of your school or community. The students could post pictures and/or a sentence about a place in our school and/or community (depending on what we are studying or the goal of our writing). Each student could post their idea from home for homework if they could or we could help them post it while at the computer center during the school day (if they couldn't do it from home). We could look back at it and see what everyone added and talk about why the pictures/places were chosen. We could also rearrange it and organize it (better than we could in a blog) into a story to be shared with others.
 * 2) We could do the same thing with describing a field trip we went on. I could post the pictures and the students to write/type a sentence about a picture on there to tell what was happening in the picture (this could be done in a computer center). The benefit of it being on a wiki is that if a student labels the picture wrong, another could to fix it (we would, of course, have to talk about how to do this and remind the kids that they are helping each other, not being negative).
 * 3) My other favorite idea was to have students come up with different ways to show a number. I could post a number and they could illustrate any way to show that number (ex: If I posted 10, they could type 5+5, or post a picture of 10 cookies, etc.). Higher level students could even post a word problem for us to solve together (or for other students to go on and solve).
 * 4) We could do the same thing with shapes (have students go on and list/post things that are circles, rectangles, triangles, spheres, cubes, etc.).
 * 5) A cool science one would be to invite other K classes from around the country to join us and post weather observations (since we study weather).
 * 6) A social studies one that would be fun to use as a family project would be to have students (with their families) post a holiday/family tradition and they could even comment on other holiday/family traditions that are posted (for example, "Hey, we do that too!" or "We do something similar, but it looks like this..."). One idea was to include kids and families from around the world to include on the wiki to share their holiday/family traditions (or "A Day in the Life of...").

I could definetely see myself using the WIKI with pictures so the editing ability. I guess, since I created a class blog for my parents, creating a WIKI to use in class wouldn't be such a bad idea. Since I am thinking of ideas for a class books, so I think writing it (well adding to it) on the WIKI would be fun. Then I could take it from my WIKI and post it also on my class blog. WOW!! Lisa W Jessica took mine! The only Wiki experience I have had is what the 2nd grade team has been doing. I think that it is a great communication tool, and although there are some "issues" we have had with it, overall it has been successful. I am not quite sure I'm as comfortable using a Wiki in the classroom as I am a blog because the blog seems a bit more user friendly. It is something that would definitely be worth a shot! ~ Stefanee Statfield

"I love the idea of getting my students and families involved together. Using wikis with all subject areas improves students computer, reading, and writing skills as well as helping my students (Kindergarten) with letter recognition in different fonts, numbers and spelling. I know students will enjoy posting and sharing their ideas with classmates and others who made read it. I plan to use wikis in the future with my students. I konw this would be a great way also to create a book club with my students. Post some questions, have them answer them or even just to have them type several sentences about the story. Davida"

I would like to create a Wiki for my classroom to communicate with parents. Since we are in a money and resource crunch, I have already started utilizing more technology by not sending home hard copies of the newsletter. It is now only being send home by email. I think it would also help so that parents could talk to each other on it too. Ben

Having such a rigid lesson format and time constraints makes it difficult to incorporate technology into my Title I lessons. I like how some groups are using it for professional purposes. I will be teaching with 8 title I teachers next year which may make it challenging to find common time to meet. The idea of a Wikki for discussion purposes may be very handy for us. A wikki may be nice for Reading parents to gain some extra feedback or ask questions anonymously they may be afraid to during a meeting, Allison

I have used Wiki's in my class for the last two years especially when we are working on our Jamestown project. It is a great way for the students to practice their writing skills and a way to put more responsibilty on the students to go back and edit each others work. The students love to read what other students wrote and feel like the "teacher" when they have to correct another students work- Jessie H