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 am having some difficulty with edublogs in getting things to look just the way I want them quickly. I actually created this in April 2008 for use with my classroom, but preferred the wiki instead. I had a ton of files to upload and couldn’t figure edublogs out quick enough to get it done. It’s something I will definitely play with this year.

I really want to allow my students to post this year. I’m currently looking at gaggle.net & ePals for school accounts. I will need to upload around 500-600 names when I do this, and am looking for an easy way to do it. Most likely, I’ll create a document with Word or Excel using STI to do it. I’m also looking at permission documents at other schools to send to parents to get permission to do all I want to this year. Our county policy only lists internet use and email use–I want student work, pictures and voices added to my policy (no last names with anything.) When I uploaded all the files for the wiki last year, I had to go through each one to make sure they never said their last names or used them in their file names. It was really time consuming, but a necessary thing because not everyone followed the directions. Imagine that!

I would love to use blogging as a Q & A tool to begin with in order to get the students to write. I would start with a question such as “What was your favorite thing you did this summer?” or “What would you like to learn in computer class this year?” and see the responses. I guess it would be like a journal activity. Eventually, with the 3rd grade book project, I’d like to post a book slideshow, and have the students write positive feedback about it. (Just for their classmates.) As I learn more about edublogs, I figure I’ll learn how to best incorporate files. I’m looking forward to the correspondence with students.

I have a draft copy of the new COS for technology, and this is what it’s all about–digital tools, collaboration, etc. I’ve really got to get with the program!!!