Using wikis in the classroom

I am about to graduate from UTSA as an elementary teacher. We have been looking into a lot of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom and I'd love to hear from current teachers on their take about using wikis in the classroom. I would like to incorporate this into my future classroom and any ideas would be great. What kinds of ways are you incorporating wikis into the class?

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Permalink Reply by Mark Brumley on October 4, 2010 at 11:58am

Go to Vicki Davis' blog...she has many excellent posts regarding wikis. For example:

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2005/12/wiki-wiki-teaching-art-o...

Jump in...the kids will love it!

Mark
Mark on Twitter or TEE on Twitter

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Permalink Reply by Lauren Dowd on October 5, 2010 at 8:51pm

I'm a 4th grade teacher, and I have used wikis in a couple of different ways. In social studies, I teach explorers. Since there are so many explorers, it is too time-intensive and unnecessary for students to research every single explorer. Instead, I create an explorers wiki and assign two students to each explorer. Each explorer has their own page, and those two students are responsible for researching that explorer and uploading text, pictures, and embedded videos. When the project is done, the whole class has a resource to refer to.

Another thing that I'm doing is having groups of 3-5 students create a wiki to model their understanding of plural and possessive nouns. I create the skeleton for the wiki - I set up the pages and include prompts on each page that help guide the students.

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Kaspar on October 10, 2010 at 10:33am

I definitely like this idea. We have discussed frequently about the jigaw method in previous classes I have taken and I love the idea of incorporating it with wikis as you have done. I like that it can be used across every domain too. What particular wiki site do you use?

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Permalink Reply by Rita on October 5, 2010 at 10:41pm

I use wikis's in my Webmastery and Multimedia classes. My students post completed assignments, participate in discussions and also use it to find other students online.

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Permalink Reply by Katy Scott on February 28, 2011 at 12:00pm

I recently wrote a blog entry that has some ideas for using wikis in the classroom, including using a wiki to create a class textbook, a class dictionary, and for reading groups. If you're interested in the details, take a look. (At the bottom of the post, there are grade-specific lesson ideas, including one for using a wiki to create a Choose Your Own Adventure book.)

You might also want to check out 50 Ways to Use Wikis.

Good luck!

Katy Scott

Stretch Your Digital Dollar