Things 21/22 - Wikis

I had heard of wikis (well other than Wikipedia) for teachers' use over this past summer and thought they sounded cool.  I had a decent plan (I thought) of how to implement, but it was an unmitigated disaster.

I created my wiki (mistermoccia.wikispaces.com), and started building a framework.  One pgae for a home page, and then one for each unit that we study in 8th grade.  I figured out how to bulk upload students as members of the wiki, so they had editing privileges (through an Excel spreadsheet).  I had a plan to rotate each of my 4 classes through the computer lab so that each class would be in twice per parking period, and so that each could make a weekly edit, to put in the information we learned during the week. 

Well, the problem ended up being that what one student would edit, someone else (usually simultaneously) would edait as well, and everything kinda blew up.  I realize now that I didn't give enough guidance to make it work (mostly, because I didn't know about the need), as well, as the fact that, at first, 90% of the kids were more interested in the prettiness factor, rather than the content.

I *will* tell everyone though, that with this tool it is very easy to tell who made what changes.  You can set it up to get an email whenever someone changes things.  As long as you keep a list of whose username belongs to what student (because they can change their usernames), you are in good shape.  It will also tell who undoes a previous change.

I think that, for the end of the year, I might revisit the wiki as a review strategy before the final, or at least before our final project.  Students will need some central repository of terms & vocabulary and the wiki could be very powerful.

I see this as potentially being the most powerful tool in our arsenal for communication.  A wiki could work easily as a class webpage (if the teacher is the only one with editing privilege), but in terms of student creation, whis could be fantastic.  It would be much easier for a teacher with 30 students, rather than me with 125, but I'll continue trying to work my way through the issues.