Wiki, Wiki, What?

Wiki Creations
I discovered wiki's a few years back during a Children's Literature class with Ms. Gullett. Wow!! I love them! She did a great job of utilizing wiki's for project submission in the class so we could see how to use them. I loved having the opportunity to see everyone's creations and thoughts! Since then I have used PBworks to create wiki's for library flex time sign up sheet, Character Parade sign up sheet, book and unit ideas for teachers, and with our Friends of the Library. For this assignment I really wanted to try out a new wiki website. I selected wikispaces to address the issue of planning cooperatively together amongst our library staff. We are looking for neat lessons and ideas to implement constantly, but most of the time the staff will call me and tell me their awesome idea and I jot it down at the campus I am at on that day. I have a notebook of ideas on each campus, but the ideas are scattered across four campuses. So, I decided to create a brainstorming wiki for the staff to utilize. I have started a couple of upcoming topics space/moon and Dr. Suess' Birthday. I will try it out this week!

http://thebrainstormingdivas.wikispaces.com/

This next week I am also planning a research lesson with Second Grade. I may try to utilize a wiki with a class to compile our research. Wish me luck :)


Advantages to Wiki's
*Students can post anytime
*Students can post from anywhere
*Students can collaborate through technology
*Students are engaged and understand how to communicate through this venue and enjoy communicating this way
*Save feature so that entire groups work is not lost if accidentally deleted

Disadvantages to Wiki's
*Students may not able to collaborate in real time (depends on the lesson plan)
*Students can not edit the wiki at the exact same time
*Students need to learn and understand copyright laws
*Students must remember their password to change the site

I feel that the advantages to utilizing wiki's in the classroom are limitless!! I love them! You can use them for research projects, blogging, project submission, project critique, brainstorming, etc. The list can go on and on... I think that being digital natives, wiki's will come natural to our students and that they will prefer to collaborate and communicate through this type of venue.