Thing 8 - What is a Wiki?

How do we open our classrooms and move them beyond our four walls? How do we engage students outside the limited time we have them in class? How do we generate interest and enthusiasm for learning? Creating a classroom wiki would certainly be a step in the right direction.

Mr. Monson's Grade 5 Classroom Wiki: "Thousands Project" has a simply designed and appealing layout. His premise is to gather 1000 responses each month from a question he and his class posts. His October question has to do with ways to reduce trash waste and so far they have received 44 responses. Anyone in the world can post to their site. From the entries in the side bar it looks like he began this project in September 2007. It's a novel idea but I think it's lost it's steam. The longer it goes the fewer responses they seem to be getting. I don't see any collaboration taking place between the kids in his class. Just making lists of responses seems to be a limited use for a wiki. I would find a way for the kids to discuss and work collaboratively on the topics.

Flat Classroom Project 2007: This project uses both a wikispaces and Ning site to connect the learning together. A lot of thought and organization went into making this a collaborative video assignment that kids and classes from around the country joined in on. My only disappointment was in the quality of the projects the kids posted. It looked to me like the kids needed additional resources and lessons on how to tell a stories using video as the medium.

I enjoyed the Go West project with a third grade class gathering information about the Oregon Trail. It was a cute collaborative project for this third grade class. Only negative was the use of ClustrMaps to track Visitor locations to their site that at times covered some of their content.

I'm still knee deep in my first idea for a wiki. Technology Resources is a wiki that I began developing this past May. I currently have a team of about a dozen contributing information to this wiki. If you go there and don't find the answer to a question just let us know so we can fill in the gaps. My next project is to assist two other MISD groups create wikis to support their goals. We're in early discussions working to identify their needs.