The Lowe Down

The Wonderful World of Wikis

April 11, 2007

My favorite Web 2.0 tool right now is the wiki.  I love them and more importantly, my students love them.  If you’re not familiar with them they are basically web pages that allow people to edit them.  This allows for a collaborative learning atmosphere that bolsters any learning community.  As one of my students wrote in one of our wikis, “I love this writing back and forth!”  Students are actually thanking me for providing a way that they can communicate with me and each other in writing!  They are reading, writing, reinforcing what they have learned and learning from each other.  How great is that?!  

So far we have tried two free sites.  One is http://www.wikispaces.com/ and http://pbwiki.com/ .  Both are very easy to use and my students learned quickly how to manuever around and post their discussions.   We’ve used wikis to summarize chapters, to share our knowledge of a concept, each reading group has a wiki, and my parent/student book clubs have used wikis.   To check out our wikis go to our Wiki page @ http://schoolweb.missouri.edu/poplarbluff.k12.mo.us/lowe/Wikis.html.

 It’s an exciting time in the classroom when a new tool for learning is introduced and it’s pronounced a success by your students.  If you haven’t tried using a wiki with your students,  give it a try.  I think you’ll like the results. 

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