After reading chapter four, I was blown away by all the things you can do with a Wiki. My first experience with a wiki-like many others-was with Wikipedia, a wiki that is an encyclopedia. When we first discovered the website in class the teacher was blown away with how much information was listed. Instantly everyone in the classroom was using Wikipedia to complete their project. Soon the news about Wikipedia spread across the high school. Everything was great until one student decided to write some unfriendly remarks about another student on the page about my high school. After this incident Wikipedia was a blocked site at school. Teachers figured out that anyone could add information to the site which made the information not creditable. This chapter in the book argues that my school might have been wrong about the reliability of this source. Wikis are an awesome tool that allows anyone to go inside and edit information that they see fit. For example when the Earthquakes struck Indonesia on Christmas information was up within hours detailing the event. People from across the world were able to put up the latest information informing the rest of the world.
As teachers, we want our students to research multiple sources in order to complete an assignment. Why not check out information from a wiki and back up your information with other sources? This way students can get the most updated and accurate information. Teachers should teach their students about the meaning of a wiki so that students are aware that there may be incorrect information out there.
Reading this chapter, I got a lot of information about how to use wiki’s in my classroom. First of all, wikis-like blogs- can be a good resource for teachers to communicate with parents and students. One teacher posted students work online for parents to see. After a class has read a book, you could have them all write book reports on different topics relating to the class book. I personally would like to give students the choice of reading books related to their own interest. In this case students can create a wiki about the different books they read which would serve as a good data base for other students who are looking for a good book to read. Students could also make comments on the book that they read and create discussions on the wiki. One site mentioned in the book was a Wikipedia designed for students with lower reading levels or ESL students that are still learning English. I was amazed by this option. I am an ESL minor and think this tool would be very useful to students learning English. First of all the wiki has over 50 different languages students can choose from to research information. If a student barely knows English they can research in their native language to still learn. Also the simple English application allows students to still receive information but at a lower reading level for the student to understand. Lastly I would allow students to submit their own work to Wikipedia or other wiki’s to see if their information can be added to the site. If I was a student and had my information added by a well known encyclopedia, I would be pretty proud of myself. This will just motivate and encourage students to do well in school.
No comments:
Post a Comment