What in the World is a Wiki?

A wiki is a great tool to use in your classroom.  Many people though do not even know what a wiki is.  A wiki is a webpage that can be edited by those that visit the site.  It allows for collaboration on a page and can be constantly edited and reviewed to keep the information accurate and up to date. Anyone with Internet access can make and use a wiki page.  You can use wikis for a number of different things.  You can collaborate on projects, share photos, and research.

There are many reasons why you should use wikis in the classroom.  One of the reasons is that students are able to gain knowledge when looking at these wikis and use their prior knowledge to build wikis.  When creating these wikis they are able to use their creative juices to make something that they think will be helpful to others and to themselves.  Since wikis are allowed to be continuously edited it fosters creativity and allows students to build it.  If students are building and editing these websites together then they are building relationships and learning from one another which is really important in education.  Using a wiki can also bring technology into the classroom which is something that is becoming more prevalent in todays education system.  

For teachers wiki’s offer a host of opportunities.  A website that I am basing this blog off of, Teachers First, has many examples of how teachers can use wikis in the classroom. Some of the examples it gives it, virtual tours, class encyclopedia, book reviews or author studies and many more.  The website also breaks down different uses for wikis into subject areas. Although wikis have so many different uses in the classroom they are still not something that is used in classrooms.

A lot of times when you put students on the internet parents become concerned with internet safety. You need to tell the parents what you plan on doing and give them a detailed account of what is going to be going on.  You also need to share the added security benefits that are associated with the wiki programming.  Also giving the parents a way to look at the page so they can see what their children are doing is another good way to get them on board. 

Award Winning Blogs

Many teachers write blogs about their students and their classroom.  They use these blogs to show what is going on in their classroom and school.  They inform those that are reading about the activities and learning that is going on in their classroom.  I wanted to research these blogs more carefully and find out why one teacher in specific writes her blog and what she includes in it.  I thought by reading her blog I could get a sense of why she writes it and how I can write mine.

The blog that I looked at was Miss Cassidy's Classroom blog.  It is an award winning blog and is about an Elementary classroom so I thought that it would be helpful to me considering I am going into the Elementary field.

Miss Cassidy is from Canada and she blogs about her classroom, students and the school in which she teaches.  She includes many pictures in her blog.  These pictures give a snapshot into her classroom life and what they do inside the classroom.  One example of this is the picture below.  It is a picture of her students doing an activity in the classroom.  In this activity they are playing a game with pennies and working in pairs to complete the game.  Other things she posts on her blog are things that are going on in the school.  One picture shows two teachers getting held up on a wall by duck tape.  The reason that they are taped to a wall is because the students were able to reach their fundraising goal.  Another picture is the students and faculty dressed up for superhero day at their school.  These are just a few examples but it shows that she really likes to keep her audience informed about what the students are doing in her classroom.  

Example of creative header on Gracie's blog.

Not only does Miss Cassidy like to keep her audience involved by sharing pictures she also gives her students a place to share as well.  Each student has a blog as well that is connected to her page.  In their blogs they post different things to show their learning in the classroom and their growth. She also allows them to be creative with the artwork that is on the blog and what is said. She gives them projects that involve using technology like making videos and stories and the students post it on their blogs.  One example is in Gracie's blog.  In their class they had a visitor that talked about bike safety. Once the presentation was done they had to make a movie that talked about bike safety.  It needed to inform the audience about how to be safe on a bike and show Miss Cassidy that she listened to the speaker.  The projects that are on the students blogs are a way to assess the children and their learning.  Another thing that it is doing though is teaching the children about technology and how it works.  I think that the children having their own blogs is really smart because not only will their technology skills improve but it allows the parents and others to see what the children are doing and how they are learning.

I think that she is trying to reach other teachers and parents on her blog.  She is informative and tries to show off the learning that her students are doing in her classroom.  Like Miss Cassidy, I too have an audience that I am trying to reach.  I am trying to reach other teachers about how you can incorporate technology in their classrooms.  Miss Cassidy's blog is a great example of how technology can be used in the classroom.  I will write other blogs that will explain other technological aspects that can be included in the classroom.  I think that with the ever changing world and the influence of technology in our world you can help but have it in the classroom.  It has to be involved in order to keep children engaged and involved in learning.  Technological can be very beneficial in the classroom but it has to be used properly and that is something else that I will talk about in the following blogs.

Welcome to my blog! Throughout the summer I will be blogging about how to integrate technology into the classroom.  I will be specifically talking about how it can be used in Elementary school.