Thing #15

Wiki

I really had no idea that you could make your own wiki page. The little tutorial on our APSU 23 things page was really helpful in explaining how you can use a wiki (not that I will ever go camping). I frequently use wikipedia and have the app on my phone. The only other time I have heard anything with wiki in it was a few years ago when the news was reporting about "wikileaks". I know wiki means quick or quickly and I can see why they chose the work wiki for all these pages. It is a fast way to communicate back and forth between multiple people. 

I looked at a few of the wikis that were provided and I really liked the educational origami wiki, I liked how it had information on Bloom's at each level. If I were to become a member I could add things to these pages based on what worked in my classroom for the different levels of Bloom's. I liked how the wiki was set up and it seems very useful. For my APSU 23 Things Sandbox wiki, I added an entry about Thing #14. I feel that I could actually use flow charts and mind maps in the classroom for reviews and for learning centers. I was however a little confused as to the "appropriate page" part. I had a hard time finding it. It seems that most people just posted to the front page. 

This wiki experience was an interesting one. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad. I had a little bit of an issue trying to figure out how to edit the page, took me a while to figure out I had to join before I edited the page. I still a little cautious about wiki's because anyone can delete things that others have spent time on and posted to the wiki. Plus I feel like it would need to be monitored by the teacher to make sure nothing inappropriate was posted on the wiki. With that said, I feel like it would be a great way to organize things for the classroom, for students and parents to see. Perhaps in addition to the classroom blog, put the year's schedule on a class wiki so parents can what has been covered and what needs to still be covered, or even a classroom supply list that parents can add things to or take things away like the tutorial with the camping trip supplies. I'm not sure if schools still do class trips, but when I was in school we did and we always needed parent chaperones, this would also be a quick way parents could add themselves to a chaperone list for a trip. I'm not sure how young elementary school students would really utilize wikis, it seems a little over their heads but I could be wrong. I will need to find out how tech savvy my students are once I get into a classroom.