When I developed my wiki I developed it as a place for teachers to share ideas with one another. I love hearing about the successes, funny instances and other things that go on in classrooms. It lets me know that I am not the only person who endures such things in my classroom. I have not yet shared my wiki with any of my fellow teachers, however, as I develop more understanding for a wiki i hope to share it with my teacher friends.
As I learn more about wikis I see that it is similar to how many people communicate on a daily basis, text messages. I know that I send many text messages during the day because it is easy, less disruptive than a phone call and with two kids of my own it is difficult to hear on the phone sometimes. I also see that a wiki could be a place to actively communicate with my parents and students. Many times my parents do not have a break to visit with me during my conference or after school, so a wiki would be a way for them to "conference" with me about their student. I could also share successes in the classroom with my parents and maybe some things to be aware of like special events, assignments and other things. A disadvantage I see is that the wiki can be changed by anyone. This would mean that someone could change something I wanted to share with my parents. Therefore, the site may not be as reliable as a class web page.
Many of the students around us are digital natives. I think a wiki would allow them to communicate much like text messaging. I would also allow them a place to ask questions they may be embarrassed to ask in class.
In my exploration, I uncovered the use of blogs and wikis themselves. I hope that as I progress in my classes I am able to incorporate more technologies to my students who, at ages 5 and 6, are somewhat digital natives.
Kristen Downs
Hi Kristen,
ReplyDeleteYour wiki can serve as a static webpage if you want it to as you can limit the permissions you provide people!