Wikis (Thing 7)

Wiki Wiki
Originally uploaded by elkit

(In my previous post (not really thing 7) I discussed how I would like to use a wiki in my classroom - and in another previous post (wordle, polldaddy and bubbl, oh my!), I linked to my bubbl map on that same topic. So this post is just the rest of thing 7 - observations from my exploration of other wikis)

Schools in the Past was very interesting, and seems like the beginning of a great idea - and I liked how it involved the parents, grandparents, and other people directly. It was a pretty simple wiki with just the one page, kindof bland ... I would have liked to see other pages with perhaps student-created material (maybe have the students draw what they think schools in the past might have looked like?). Maybe some students could even take home a flip camera/vado and interview their grandparents then post that video clip. I would also have added some visuals (photos of old schools). As far as learning outcome, I didnt' see anything that shows that the student applied what they had learned - or even that they had read what was posted.

I loved the Kindergarten Counting Book. I would have liked to see a byline for more of the photos, just to show that multiple children participated ... and the OCD part of me would have liked it if all of the photos were the same size :-) I also would have either added content to the pages tabbed at the top, or removed the tabs. But I think the idea is great and may even "borrow" it :-) But I think the idea might be better suited to another format (perhaps bookr? or a slideshow? maybe even a voicethread?) that could then be posted to a wiki rather than making it the only content on the wiki.

The third wiki that I visited was Code Blue - I think this is a fantastic job. You can tell that the students put a lot into it, it's obvious that they learned about different diseases from reading the patient pages. Looking at the hospital/doctor info pages it also looks like they had a lot of fun and were creative. I like the list of links on the front page, as well. They did a good job finding different resources. Finally, I enjoyed the hospital "signs" and other visuals on the pages - enough to make it interesting but not so much that it detracted from the information. Kudos to mscofino and her students! I explored some of her other wikis, as well, (like this one on Native Americans) and was quite impressed :-)

Wiki example (not really Thing 7)

Here is an example of a wiki created by a special education class about a CBI trip to the grocery store. I LOVED this!!! I was kindof stuck when thinking about how my students could create a wiki - all of the usual ideas (class discussion, sharing notes, etc.) don't really apply to my kiddos. But we can certain take pictures and share our CBI trip adventures with parents! Or other activities we do in class! My mind is now reeling with brilliant ideas of how I can use a wiki with my students.

I had planned on creating a wiki for my class - one with information for parents, basically taking the info from my class website and putting it in wiki form, because updating and adding new information (like the videos I mentioned in a previous post, demonstrating how to do homework activities) would be so much easier than with a traditional website (not to mention that Barrow County Schools won't let me link my webpage to the school's webpage lol). But then adding in the student participation element brings a whole new level of excitement :-)

I'll be back later (probably tomorrow) to do the actual Thing 7, but I wanted to look for at least one wiki created by special education students and there wasn't one on Madame O's list of links :-)

(by the way, I found the wiki on the NECC ning on a forum about using blogs and wikis with special education students)