Thing 21

Describe a wiki you found that inspires you to create one of your own. What hurdles might stand in the way of your using a wiki? What would it take to remove the hurdles? Is it worth the fight? I loved the idea of a school having its own Wiki page. I looked at the Arbor Heights Elementary School Wiki. It would really be nice to have a school website Wiki page that many people had access to. I noticed that it had a calendar on its page that everyone could update as needed. There were even classroom supply lists posted that teachers would be able to set up and change as needed. I guess that the good thing about having a school Wiki page like this one is that the information would more than likely be current and accurate. It would also make less work for any one person. Collaboration is a great thing. I also enjoyed looking at the classroom Wiki pages, such as the Cool Cat Teacher Blog on the Westwood Schools Wiki page. This teacher has a wonderful blog set up that contains many different pages. She has projects set up on her blog that students can edit and contribute to. I was really inspired by this. I can see that one hurdle that might stand in my way is that it would simply take a lot of monitoring once the Wiki page is set up. I would have to look to make sure that any student contribution is accurate and appropriate. Just as Wikipedia is not always a trusted resource, my Wiki page might not always contain accurate student work. If the quality of the Wiki page isn't great, it could adversely affect the learning of other students who might receive someone's false information. It would take a really organized teacher to maintain an accurage, focused Wiki page. I believe if I were to start out with just a small project, I could really learn a lot about how to manage a Wiki page and I know it would be enjoyable for my students. I would just have to make sure that students were really learning from the experience!