Thing 9 - Wiki Wiki Wiki

This was an interesting topic for me because I have heard about wikis for some time now, but never really looked any further into it. It was a little confusing to me at first why someone would choose a wiki over a blog, or just a webpage in general, but then I started to see how the wiki allows for much more interaction from its members. It was neat because on some of the school/classroom wikis that I found, there was general information on there, but then the students could add their own personal touch to certain sections. In my opinion, as long as the teacher has time to monitor something like this, I think the buy-in from students could potentially be greater with a wiki than a blog since kids would be reading information posted by their peers. But, I can see the disadvantage of really having to monitor what is included in the wiki, so that someone isn't posting false information that is just going to make a topic even more confusing. I'm not sure if there is realistically enough time for that in a teacher's schedule. Here are three of the wikis I visited:

1. mrsibrahim.wikispaces.com
This wiki caught my eye because it was for a classroom of 2nd grade students. I wanted to take some time to explore it because I was not sure what a teacher would be able to do with wikis when working with that age group. I liked how each student had their own page included within the wiki, so that they could write about themselves and include personal stories. The wiki was pretty easy to navigate, not an overwhelming amount of information. I thought it was really cute to read what the kids had written about certain lessons covered -- always interesting to get the perspective of a 2nd grader. I think it could be a way to see if the kids are really understanding the content or not.

2. bear-den.wikispaces.com
This wiki was created for an 8th grade world history class. It was quite a bit more detailed than the elementary wikis that I looked at, but that makes sense because of the amount of content being learned at a higher grade level. I was very impressed with the amount of information on the wiki. Students could find vocab lists, test reviews, possible essay questions, etc. He even had a spot on there with an updated number of exams he had corrected and how many he had left to go! I wish that our classes would have had something set up like this when I was in school. With our busy schedules, it was always so hard to coordinate with other people to find study times. I really like how this promotes collaboration with kids too. It seems like so many times, the competitive spirit of academics can take over and students don't want to share study materials. As a student who did make study guides for myself and worked very hard at school, I can see where I might get frustrated if everyone was not contributing to the wiki. If it were the same people always putting up good ideas and the rest of the class just kind of "using" their information all the time, I can see where that could get annoying. It seems like there should maybe be some sort of requirement for the class that you contribute to the wiki at least three times throughout the semester or something like that.

3. stanleyyelnats.wikispaces.com
This wiki was targeted more specifically at giving input on a book that the students had read. I think this is a really neat idea. What a cool way to get the different perspectives on a story from all of its readers. I could see how this might actually save some class time, as a teacher could look over the wiki and then pick out certain posts that the class could discuss. I think this might be an interesting way to get the opinions of kids who are not as confident speaking in front of the class. Some students might have a much easier time expressing themselves through typing versus oral expression. It would at least be an avenue to get more of the class involved I would think. This page was very easy to navigate through, and really just kept it simple, which was nice. Some of the other wikis had way too much information.