This blog is intended to help teachers who want to use more technology in their classrooms but feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of material out there, or who are just looking for some new ideas. I will try to show what technology has worked and what hasn't worked for me, from both learning and classroom management perspectives.
I am talking with the elementary teachers at my school today about using wikis in their classes. When asked to do this, I debated about whether to get them started with pbwiki or wikispaces (time did not allow to get them started with both, nor did it seem logical although they will be introduced to all free educational wiki options to explore on their own). I have been using pbwiki this year and really like it, mostly because of being able to create accounts for my students without email addresses along with the look of it. But wikispaces allows you to create student accounts now also if it is an educational wiki. Wikispaces also has more editing features that I think are important for teachers who are still getting used to web use in their classroom. I have had to look up code for several things that I wanted to put on my pbwikis that some teachers may not want to do. So, while I still fully endorse and love pbwiki, I have decided to focus on wikispaces for this post. I will hopefully give an in depth look at pbwiki in the future.
Wikis in the Classroom
Wikis are a very valuable tool for use in the classroom for many reasons. I use a wiki in my library classes and recently had students write their own ending to The Giver on it. After they were finished, I embedded a Google Docs form allowing them to vote for their favorite endings based on the categories of "Best Ending" and the "Most Creative" ending. The winners' writings will be displayed in the library and on the wiki once all votes are in. This is just one example of student sharing. The possible uses of wikis in the classroom are endless, but here is a presentation by @tombarrett titled 9 Interesting Ways to Use Wikis in the Classroom to get you thinking.
If you are interested in starting an educational Wikispaces wiki, below is a step by step guide that I created to get you going.
I have also recorded a screencast of the process for those of you who prefer a visual presentation.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment