Shelfari

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Wikis


“Wikis easily support collaborative writing. All contributors are seen as equals in the process, and all previous versions of the text are archived and accessible.” (Pearson, p. 45). This past summer I created a Digital Storytelling Kit wiki and I also created a wiki to use for a Constitution Day activity.  I have not yet been able to implement them in my classroom, but I look forward to showing my students how to collaborate using the wiki and seeing where they can go with them.

1001 Flat World Tales is a wiki that recognizes student writing in the classroom from around the world. Students can publish a story of their own and are also asked to peer review each other’s work. It hasn’t had any revisions in a couple of years, which is a shame because it is a really neat idea. Visually the wiki is pretty simple in its design and graphics. The wiki is organized by navigation tools, tools for teachers, and tools for students and includes hyperlinks to sources inside the wiki. I can tell by clicking around on the different links that it is meant to be a collaborative effort, but even though there is several participating school there are only a few revisions.

Ponderous Pandas is a wiki created by Jan Abernathy to showcase the work of her 5th grade students in Greenville, PA. This wiki is definitely a collaborative effort by her and her students. This wiki has not had any revisions since September 2011, but it looks like she creates a new wiki each year.  The sidebar has links to wikis and blogs that they have created to collaborate on a variety of topics along with hyperlinked resources for students and teachers. Mrs. Abernathy and her students use multi-sensory tools, videos, and podcasts throughout the wiki to collaborate, contribute, and create. This is one of those examples that makes you want to drop everything and start creating your own page!

3 comments:

  1. I'm interested in checking out the 1001 Flat World Tales wiki. It sounds pretty cool and I think I fit the profile of stories from around the world. Thanks for finding it and posting about it!

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  2. I loved the Ponderous Pandas wiki! What a great find on your part. Yes, there is a lot of information, but you can really see the collaboration and many tools the teacher is using with her students.

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  3. It seems that several of you created wikis in the MET program prior to this course. It is sad that there were few revisions in the first wiki that you evaluated. I wonder if this idea can be adapted and used across a district in the the same grade levels. It seems like an activity like this would fit seamlessly into the new ELA requirements in the Common Core. I agree with Heather on how amazing the Pandas wiki is. I am bookmarking this site to use in future classes.

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