There are so many wonderful things about wikis, where do I begin? Oh, let's start with where you can create one for FREE and if you are in education K-12 you can update your account so that you don't have to deal with advertisements on the side! Wahoo for teacher discounts! All you need to do is go to
http://www.wikispaces.com/ and begin. It is very simple, you do not have to know html or any programming at all. You choose if you want it to be by invitation only (I would use that in my classroom setting- more manageable) or public, where anyone can add to it. Now you can always go back and change anything as the MASTER OF YOUR DOMAIN, incase someone accidently erases someone else's comments. Editing is tracked so you can see who did what if you have to play Sherlock Holmes solve a problem. Then you just edit and go on. All members of the Wiki have editing priviledges to a degree. If someone makes a typo and another member catches it, he/she can fix it.
Now the question comes in: HOW DO I USE THIS IN MY CLASSROOM?
Some possibilities include:
- A cross curricular thematic lesson with each page dealing with a specific subject (ex: Pirates- Social Studies focuses on history of piracy and even biographies, Language Arts focuses on literature with pirates as a theme such as Treasure Island or How I Became a Pirate, Math focuses on story problems that deal with "treasure seeking" or voyages, Science focuses on bouyancy, projectile accuracy (cannon balls away!), oceans
- How-to pages to solve math problems, complete assignments, etc.
- General discussion for whatever topics you are discussing in class. Many students will mull over the discussion in class and then a few hours later a thought hits them that relates to dicussion and it is not always at an opportune time to go back to the discussion.
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