A wiki, on the other hand, will be useful for collaboration. Students can add to or change things written by each other. In one sense, I don’t like that, because I can see where some students might “take over” and delete writings by another, but I can always go to the history to see the changes. Some ground rules would have to be established first, I’m sure. But I like the idea of using it as a continuing story. I had thought about doing this in my classroom with a Word document saved on the server so each child would have access to it, but this would be much simpler. If the students just add on to a sentence or paragraph, they will not be taking away from anyone else. I think as they start using a wiki, they need to allow others to put down their thoughts, no matter what. I will be using this with 2nd thru 4th grade, and I know how some of them have little or no tolerance for some of their classmates. Again, ground rules. I’ll have to work on that!

One note: in a class on wikis at the AETC this summer, the instructor told us that when we embed files in our pages, if we have a lot to put on there (as I did), link to the file instead of embedding it. It will make the page easier to upload, especially if your reader has dial-up. I spent a couple days this summer redoing my pages for that. Lesson learned. It does go much faster now.

Also, another beauty of the wiki, is that you can have multiple pages for collaboration. I will create one for each class. And each of them can be added to. It seems that on the blogs, only the home page is for commenting and the other pages are static. You can create static pages on a wiki just by locking it, but you don’t have to.

Wikispaces has a free wiki without ads for teachers. http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers You can actually create as many wikis as you need. On the advice of my instructor this summer, I created one for each grade I’ll be working with (because of the number of files I’ll be uploading to it), and each one is free. I will eventually link to all of them from my main wiki. I believe I’ve seen other teachers using their wikis the same way. In fact, I’ve seen blogs from other teachers who have a personal blog and a professional blog. I’ve seen some things on the personal blogs that I wouldn’t want my parents reading, so I sort of question that. I’m always afraid something will come back to bite me in the rear!

I have enjoyed looking through a lot of blogs, but I subscribed mainly to some tried and true ones I already knew about. I like Kathy Schrock’s things on Discovery. I’ve enjoyed watching her tweets (and Leslie Fisher’s) about their new iPhones. They keep me in stitches–talk about kids in a candy store!

There was one for 1st & 2nd Grade that I’m going to watch carefully in the upcoming year. I didn’t find too many elementary blogs, but this one looked like it would have some info I could use.

Cool Cat Teacher’s site has piqued my interest since joining wikispaces. She does a Flat Classroom Project that was highlighted. Well, many years ago, when I first graduated college, I was a kindergarten aide in Westwood Schools, Camilla, GA. I was only there a year before I joined the faculty at the public school there. So I’ve been interested in following things at that school.

Due to AETC, NECC and this online class, I have subscribed to so much lately, I am not sure what is what. I will say that del.icio.us is probably my very favorite thing. I had Ikeepbookmarks.com, and have just added it to delicous. Del.icio.us is SO much easier. I love the tagging. Then, I read about diigo, and wonder if I should try it. I’ve decided to let it go for a while. It’s kind of like buying a computer…the minute you do, there’s something better out there. Oh well!

The beauty to me of all this, is the fact that after our class is over, we will be able to go back and tweak all that we’ve gleaned to suit our needs. Yes, it’s overwhelming at the moment, but as we settle into the school year and working with the kids once again, we will find which things work best for us. Thank goodness we don’t have to be proficient in 6 weeks!!! I’ve always thought I was pretty tech savvy, but mastering edublogs & rss, etc. has shown me that I don’t need to be too smug! (I am still one of the tech queens at my school, but that could change any day too!) We will always have learning opportunities. I try to tell that to my students–that we never stop learning just because we graduate!

That’s it from the lab for now!