Using Wikis

Today in class it's a whole new topic for me: Wikis. They allow for multiple users to share information on the same page, including editing and adding to the same page, with a history of what has been added/changed. This is what makes it different from a blog. With a blog, one person writes, and the others can comment on what was written, but can't change it. With a wiki, one person writes, and everyone else can then edit or add on to what was orignally written, or engage in a discussion about the topic. Much easier than trying to collaborate through e-mail on a project because everyone sees the exact same thing. Some uses for Wikis in the classroom for elementary students:

• An annotated virtual library: listings and commentary on independent reading students have done throughout the year.
• Collaborative book reviews or author studies
• An elementary class “encyclopedia” on a special topic, such as explorers or state history – to be continued and added to each year!
• A virtual tour of your school as you study “our community” in elementary grades
• A travelogue from a field trip or NON- field trip that the class would have liked to take as A culmination of a unit of study: Our (non) trip to the Capital and what we (wish) we saw.
• Detailed and illustrated descriptions of scientific or governmental processes: how a bill becomes a law, how mountains form, etc.
• A travel brochure wiki: use wikis to “advertise” for different literary, historical, or cultural locations and time periods: Dickens’ London, fourteenth century in Italy in Verona and Mantua ( Romeo and Juliet), The Oklahoma Territory, The Yukon during the Gold Rush, Ex-patriot Paris in the Twenties, etc.

I'm setting up a Wiki myself for my colleagues to collaborate on teaching ideas involving technology. We'll see how it goes!

Here is our class site with some examples that people have found of wikis that they like:

http://mcisd21.wikispaces.com/