Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Wikis

I used my Wiki again with my kids today. The new activity they did was to write about their weekends. I put a new set of directions up on the Home page for them to see when they first logged in. The directions led them to click on their page and begin writing about their weekend. Here is a screen shot of my Home page and a few of the kids' pages.


I am very pleased with my student's motivation to write while using the Wiki. I have also had a lot of my students log in from home and continue to work on their Wiki page. That is one of the best features. It is so nice that they can continue working from home and that I don't need to give extra time in school if they don't finish. I do have a few kids that do not have internet access so I let them have extra time in school to work on the one computer I have to access to during the day, but for the most part, they can finish at home!

I definitely plan to continue using this all year. I have even begun to discuss with our Media Specialist how we can collaborate with each other using the Wiki. We are going to create assignments together that the students can work on with me and in Media. I also want to start having the kids work together to create collaborative projects with each other. I haven't worked out all of the details for that yet, but for now, they love just using the Wiki independently to create things. I love my Wiki!

7 comments:

  1. I love that your students are learning to use a Wiki and that they enjoy it at such a young age. My students did not really grow up with using Wikis in the classroom and it is difficult to get them to buy into them. I created one as a space for the upper level students to share ideas for short story literature discussions. I have separate pages for each of the group leaders to prepare for their literature circles. They appear to be using Facebook instead! Any ideas for motivating high school students?

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  2. I am glad your students are doing a great job with their writing and using your class Wiki. I know you have some great writers in your class! I also like that the students have the ability to access it from home and continue to work on it.

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  3. Leslie - I am not sure how you can motivate your High School kids to use it. Maybe if their Wikispace preparation page counted as part of their grade, they would value it more and might be more motivated to use it rather than Facebook. Look on the bright side, at least they are using one type of technology :) Too bad it is blocked though or you could utilize that into your literature discussions.

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  4. Jackie - Yes, I do have some great writers thanks to their previous teachers :) It is so nice that they can work on it from home so I don't have to send all of my kids to the Media computers to work on their Wiki after they finish with their work!

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  5. Elementary school students seem so eager to use technology. My middle school students seem to not like it as much, for some reason. Maybe, Leslie, making your wiki act and behave like facebook would elevate it in your students' eyes. I remember a few classes ago, someone (I think Steve) showed us an activity he did with his students where they created facebook profiles for different characters in a story. I like activities that are riffs on activities the students already do in their every day lives. Figuring that out is the hard part!

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  6. I like that you can access and offer suggestions that the students could then later go back and edit on their own time. Have the most of the students been able to access this from home?

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  7. Patrick - Only a few of my students have logged in and made edits from home. I believe that this is due to the fact that it is optional and they forget about it. However, they do get very excited about using it in school. I thought about giving the students some type of reward if they log in and make edits from home, but then what would I do about the students who do not have internet access from home? I wouldn't want them to not have the opportunity to get the reward or feel bad about not having the internet at home.

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