Journal 7: Wiki (web 2.0 tool review)

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content.  It has hyperlinks imbedded within the text to lead users to more detailed information or the source of a piece of information.  It is an easy, collaborative tool.  Anyone can edit it, add to it etc., which is good news for those of us who value simplicity.  Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from around the world and is one of the largest reference web sites. Every day tens of thousands of people edit and create thousands of new articles to augment the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia. I had never heard of this before.  I knew about Wikipedia, but not the source.  When we went to San Marcos' Wiki I was floored at the resources available. There is a reference book called The Wiki Way which gives lots information on how to create a space. I went to Wikispace where you can create and find different Wikis.  There is one called  CodeBlue listing websites dealing with the body systems, targeting six graders. Super fun resource. I am definitely going to use this tool as a resource for lesson plans.

 I read quite a few  comments by educators about the Wiki and was suprised to find that they are having their students create them and evaluate each other's work.  The educators used this technique with groups of students as a  collaborative classroom activity.  They said that they enjoyed the fact that they could see how the groups went about solving or presenting a problem/piece of information.  What's really nice is that the teachers who were unsure, yet wanted to create a Wiki for a class project, had a place to go to ask other, more experienced teachers how to implement it. Really good support forum.  I had no idea all of this existed!