Thing 15

I just finished adding to our page on the wiki. It was actually pretty easy to do. At first I did not really care for the idea of wiki's. However, I now understand how it can be a useful tool. I still don't like the idea of people editing other peoples stuff though. This is how my thought process began. As you read, you can probably tell that I didn't like wiki's at first. HERE GOES: So I am still on the fence about Wiki. I did like the you tube video we watched explaining the point of wiki. It was entertaining and simple to follow. The one thing I didn't like was all the editing. For example: in the video, a person would go in and edit and decide to bring something on the trip. They would add it to the items bringing list. The problem I had was there was no accountability, It didnt say WHO was bringing something. What if that person forgot? I did like how wiki makes it easier to organize vs. e-mails. That part makes sense. I had a college professor ruin me on wiki's for students. She said that is was ridiculous that her college students were using wiki's as academic sources. Kind of funny, really. We had a two hour class on what peer reviewed academic sources were and were told to NEVER use wiki's as a source for a report. But I understand the purpose of this learning activity was NOT for scholarly purposes. I could see using something like this as a tool to communicate with parents. Of all the tools we have learned about, this would not be my first choice. But I can see how it could be useful. As a teacher, I could post class needs/wants. I could include a section for parent volunteers during certain times. If the class had a picnic or a field trip, I could use it to post things that were needed. I did like the bookloverswiki link that this learning activity provided. I like being able to look up books and get reviews. I have heard teachers say that they have started books before with their class and then realized that it wasn't really appropriate. I think a wiki could certainly be a great took for something like this. I also like the link http://teacherlibrarianwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/19823570/FrontPage. This also has great information from one teacher to another. I especially liked the link that included books for elementary kids to read and great reading websites. I realize that if I used a wiki, it would be more for teacher communication with one another than it would be for parent/teacher communication. Teachers could have one site like this (wiki's) and communicate about lesson plans that worked/didn't work, etc. As I am typing this, I am realizing the potential in wiki's for teacher communication. I could see using this for that purpose...but I don't think I would use it in my classroom with parents. I wouldn't want parents editing or adding content that was actually inappropriate. Anyway, I appreciated this learning tool. I never knew that it catered to teachers in this way. I thought it was simply people creating pages of information to sound smart...lol I will be open-minded about wiki's in the future and look forward to discovering some more practical ones for teachers.