Wikis

This week a 5th grade teacher at one of the schools I work at showed me their Wiki page. It was awesome! She really had done a lot with it. She showed me how she kept her newsletters on it, all her homework, and several other things. The reason she was showing me in the first place was that the students had created a live museum for a person they had studied about in class. Since one of my GT students is in her class she wanted me to see what she had done. It was quite impressive. The kids had several items of their work posted on the Wiki from poetry they had written to their history reports or live museum piece. The teacher even had several discussions going and commented on how many students had actually responded to/ or even just looked at the question. She said that in class the students wouldn't have paid that much attention to something she wrote on the board. I was very impressed and asked her several questions about it. In the fall when we come back to school I will be getting together with her again to get some details ironed out so that I can put together and use with the students my Wiki page. I know I got a start on it in this class, but it definitely needs some work and I need to work out the details of how to incorporate it into class- especially when I only see the students once a week for an hour and at the most two times a week for an hour each time. I think one of the first steps is going to be to see who has computer access at home. I know in this day and age most of the student population has a computer at home, but one cannot assume that everyone has a computer at home. And even those that do: the computer may not pull up the Wiki page properly and the student(s) may have limited access to the computer. I do plan to spend some time over the summer getting a little more familiar with the Wiki page so that it is a little more comfortable for me and then I think it will be easier to present and use in class. I think it is a great way to communicate with parents and have students show their work. I am excited to find a way to incorporate it into my classroom.