Thing 5

I liked the idea of the wiki after seeing the little video. I immediately thought of a cruise I want to plan with a bunch of family members and friends. I also thought how cool it would be to plan a school party with the parents. I could list what the class needed or ask for game ideas. I liked the idea because I have been a part of the e-mail chaos that ensued when we decided to plan a family camping trip. A wiki would have made it easier and a little more fun I think.

Wiki's are able to be edited and seem a little less formal. I think blogs are more for information sharing with access to comments that people can choose to read or not to read. Wiki's are for collaboration and seem to allow for more communication on a 2 way street. I think a blog is more appropriate if a teacher wants to lead discussion on a topic or share information about an event. A wiki is appropriate if the teacher wants the information to be formed by others. Blog information can be added by others but not changed.

I can see students using wikis to build vocabulary or to discuss a book they are asked to read. It could be a good way to review a book before taking an AR test over it. It could be used to compare and contrast a book the class read to the movie. I can see a ton of ways to use a wiki to study or to speak academically about ELA classes or social studies. I'm not sure about math. I would have to play around with it a little more.

I really liked the wikihow site. I looked at the wiki for camping in the back yard. It was fun to look at because my daughter has been begging to set up the tent in our back yard. Other things that were funny were correct use of certain words. The one I really didn't like was the one where the northern hemisphere talked to the southern hemisphere. It was not very easy to navigate. I tried to look at a few others but none of the topics really interested me. I just looked at a few but not with much interest. I saw the educational benefit of them but the topics held no interest for me.

I think that as long as students understand that a wiki is added to by anyone, Wikipedia could be used. They would have to understand that the information on Wikipedia may not have been added to by someone who knows what they are talking about. Wikipedia is a good place for students to get ideas for things to research but not necessarily a good place to do the actual research. I think a real encyclopedia or other reference book is the correct place to "verify" the information that is placed on Wikipedia. Students would have to be sure to find proof of the Wikipedia information in another place before relying on the information for a report, speech, or research paper.