Wikis in the classroom

I teach a class called "Integrating Technology into the K-12 Classroom" at The University of Tennessee. We are currently exploring wikis in the classroom. If you are willing I would love to be able to share your "success story" with my students.

Please share:

Grade
Subject
Benefits or cons
Students acceptance of using wikis
Any parental issues

Thanks! Your help is appreciated. It always helps to share "real world" examples.

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jenny Murphy on February 6, 2011 at 7:25pm

Hi Jeff,

I love wikis and have had much success with them over the past few years. I am an Instructional Technology Specialist at a K-8 school in Massachusetts. I use wikispaces for a few different uses.

Resources4Learning - this wiki I created for Student Resources. My thought behind using a wiki was so my teachers and I could add curriculum links for students to one space.

Runkle Technology - this wiki is a student showcase of work. Teachers and parents love this wiki.

Resources4Teaching - this is used as a professional development space for my teachers. If there's any training or tutorials we're doing I can post to this wiki.

I used a wiki with my 7th grade technology class last year, as a way for them to share their work on our Media Literacy unit. Unfortunately, within a week, a couple students wrote inappropriate things on each other's pages and I had to stop its use with that group. This year, in order for students to collaborate and comment on each others ideas, I've been using Edmodo.

Please let me know if you have any questions at all.

:) Jenny

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ken Edwards on February 6, 2011 at 8:44pm

Jenny,

Thanks for the great ideas and tips; quick question for you -- how do you push your wiki out to your staff or do you invite them to visit your wiki space?

Ken

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jenny Murphy on February 7, 2011 at 6:51am

Hi Ken,

I talk to the invite staff individually or in small groups about how the wiki works. Then I invite them by email. I am still talking to people about it because even though the links change often, people still don't get the idea of the wiki. Everything takes time... :)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ken Edwards on February 7, 2011 at 2:15pm

Thanks for the advice Jenny; I will be sending our an email to my staff in a couple of days inviting them to view my wiki.

Ken

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jeff Beard on February 6, 2011 at 9:13pm

Jenny,

Thanks for taking the time to share this! I really like your wikis.

I looked up Edmodo, but can you say more about your experience using it this year?

Jeff

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jenny Murphy on February 7, 2011 at 6:54am

Edmodo has been awesome. Even my most reluctant teachers have been willing to learn about it and use it with classes because it's easy! The teachers I have tried it with this year are 6th and 7th grade language arts teachers. Students created Book Review Podcasts, shared them on Edmodo and responded to each other's work with focused questions. After I shared my work with some other colleagues, one of my 3rd grade teachers set up her class for Genre Book Sharing.