Think #16 - Wikis

Sandbox photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons, by Sula - I've been waiting for this THING since we had our first group assignment that used a form of technology and was introduced to using wikis in the class. At first, I only understood a simple way to use them - make lists between friends - which I've done twice now. But after reading so many of the example wikis from Library2play, I've seen how there is a way to use them in the classroom. I really enjoyed the 10th grade literacy circle wiki since I taught 10th grade English for so long. I really connected to the short stories in the wiki, the way the questions were asked and the responses the kids made. I even went on to read about Mr. Morris, his class blog and again was hit over the head with ways to use a blog in an English classroom. I was just so impressed and a bit jealous that I'm not in the classroom right now to start implementing these ideas. I love the list of ideas as well at the end of Thing #16 about how to use the wiki - I never thought of using it for note-taking - so clever. I'd like to see how the boundaries for the students are set up, how they are taught how to use the wiki correctly. I'm sure it takes a bit of education. I also see the wiki being used for a poetry unit. I can't imagine the rules to it right now, but I can imagine the creativity that would come from collaborative poetry. It's just like the game I used to play when I taught 6th graders and gave the first person a sentence and they had to add another sentence, and each person did the same until the story ends with the last person. There really are some clever things that could be done with a wiki - now, to get my self back in a school.