About Wikis In Education

Describe here how you might use a wiki in your instructional work environment. Please include your name at the end of your post.

My main intention in using wikis in the classroom will be to make sure that the students fully understand the topics by checking what they have posted. I will give them specific topics that I feel are especially important and have them post their thoughts and ideas in much the same way that we have done in this class. --Alyssa Kovach

I believe that when I have my own classroom, I will use wikis mainly in the area of tracking the progress of my students. I will have my students do research. They will be required to continually post their results and findings throughout the semester. This would be beneficial to both the teacher and the student. I think students would learn a lot of information about different research projects. They would also be able to learn from their peers. --posted by Allison Huff

I think I will use a wiki most for group projects in my classroom. This will be a great tool for students to upload and review each others work rather than having to e-mail each other back and forth for revisions. Also, they can provide each other feedback on a wiki and not have to constantly meet face to face for a group project. ---posted by Kim Zachar

I will probably use wiki for research purposes. Wikipedia.com seems like a really useful website to find any information for projects, research, etc. The wiki website will also provide an easy way for the students to develop a website of their own as a project assignment. It is a ready to use website with simple instructions and navigation structure to add pages and links. It allows the students to focus more on the content of their website instead of how to do a website. ---posted by Caci Rogers

I think I will use a wiki as a sort of discussion/opinion forum for the whole class. I want a place where students can ask questions and help each other come up with a lot of different answers. Also, a wiki could be used for class projects. Students can work together to research some historical event or person, and they can all contribute different parts of information to the wiki. The class can then read through everthing on the wiki and come up with a final presentation. The presentation can be a be a website, powerpoint, or even a polished/final wiki. ---posted by Dayna Baer

I think that wikis can be used to aid students in interacting with other students and to see others opinions. It can also show me if they are fully understanding what was taught of being taught. This is an excellent way to making students express their ideas nad it can also be fun.---Darlen Dickson

I think that I will use wikis in my classroom as a way to track student learning as well. I have recently divided my classroom into cooperative learning groups and I think I could use the wiki to track communication and understanding in my classroom for each group. Sometimes students will say that they understand a concept but they really do not, but through the wiki I will be able to track the progress.--Lynn Jennings

I think that I will use a wiki, such as Wikipedia in my classroom. I think Wikipedia would be a great tool in order to help children research information on different subjects. I would assign my students a topic and have them report back to the class to compare their findings. -- Wendy Harris

I think that I will use a wiki in my classroom mainly as a discussion forum for students. I will require a certain number of posts among relevant topics, as well as space for casual class discussion. Hopefully this will create an open, accepting environment for students to share their thoughts and ideas with each other. -- Courtney Beckett

I plan to use wikis within several aspects of an educational setting when I am a teacher. My first idea is to use a wiki to have my class create, write, revise and edit a story. I think this would be fun and it would allow the students to help one another edit each other's writing, as well as, work on story grammar. Another idea I had was to have my students use it to communicate with one another on specific classroom topics, including areas of interest, where they write about what they already know about a given topic, what they have learned, what they want to know, and so forth. I think by incorporating wikis into my classroom and observing how my students use them, I will be able to come up with even more ideas on how to utilize wikis in the classroom. As an instructor, I hope to be able to use wikis for my own benefits as well. I think they are a great tool for sharing information with other teachers. Collaboration is a key element to good teaching.--Jamie Baer

I would like to use wikis, by having my students create a wiki page that serves as a "how to" or a help guide on a variety of topics, ranging from organizing a locker to applying for a learner’s permit. (I teach 9th grade English.) I think this would be an excellent way to get my students involved in developing their writing, mechanics, and usage skills! ---- Mary Easter

I think having a class wiki page set up for students to use would aid discussion. I would also facilitate student learning by including "bonus" assignments on the wiki that the students could work on together to earn extra points. When I was researching wiki's I also came across the idea of *English shareable lesson plans that I think would be great a great way for English teacher's to collaberate. -- Genny Kilpatrick

When I have a classroom of my own I will mostly likely use wikis in group projects. Having a group of students create and use a wiki is a way to teach them how to collaborate with one another. A wiki also gives them a central place to relocate important information needed for the project. I think wiki's are a great technological tool that we as teachers should utilize. --Carrie Levenson

I plan to teach high school English, and I think that a wiki would be a fun way to discuss various literary works. I could pose a question about the story (i.e--explain at least one simularity between The Tempest by Shakespeare and A Tempest by Cesaire). We could use the wiki to give facts or points of interest about a story. I think it would be a great way to discuss literature without always writing formal papers or essays.---Francesca M. Sails

Wikis could be used successfully in the classroom. In my classroom I would have the students to divide into groups and pick a topic related to something we were studying. Each student would then be responsible for adding new information on the topic until the lesson was over and then creating a report form all of the information gathered. Cassandra Johnson