Wikis+and+Blogs+exploration

Review Wiki Instructions [] Found a photography blog at [] Here is an AP History Blog [] Blog that includes //The Crucible []// Wiki that has a section about The Crucible http://vanrossenenglish.wikispaces.com/Year+13+Written+Text.+Play+The+Crucible%2C+by+Arthur+Miller%2C+1953.

The Wikispaces Website lists some of the uses of Wikis in schools as follows: Wikis bring powerful yet accessible collaboration to every aspect of the learning experience. Some of the ways wikis are being used in education today include:
 * Class Websites** - Teachers post classroom guidelines, notices, and assignments on their wiki. Parents and absent students can keep track of classroom work and homework deadlines.
 * Collaborative Projects** - Students work with other students in their class or students in another country to do research and learn. Using text, images, videos and other media, they can build an online resource about any topic.
 * Peer Assessments** - Students learn from classmates as they peer-review one another's work.
 * E-Portfolios** - Students get their own private wiki to post their writing and work. Educators can then review it to help each student develop.
 * Professional Development** - Teachers support their learning by sharing curricula, lesson plans, labs, and other resources with their colleagues.
 * Parental Engagement** - Parents keep up to date on the latest classroom and school projects, plan upcoming events, and organize their own activities.

Notes from “Using Wikis in Schools: a Case Study,” by Lindsay Grant published on the Web at [] as part of the FutureLab Website, a British not-for-profit organization promoting technology in education. Lindsay is not a teacher. She works for Futurelab.

“Wikis are simple websites that allow their users to create and edit content.” ”They commonly include the ability to compare previous versions of a page, discuss issues prior to making changes and track who edited what and when .” She describes a case study wherein students in a technology class in a particular school completed an assignment using a wiki as the class tool for presenting the results of research on a chosen topic. Observations were made: principally that students each took on a role for completion of their part of the project. Students, for the most part, didn’t edit the work of other students. Focus groups were used by the author to investigate students’ response to the tool.

Notes from scholarly article published at [] “Wiki as a Teaching Tool,” by Kevin R. Parker (Idaho State University) and Joseph T. Chao (Bowling Green State University) //Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects// Volume 3, 2007.

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The authors of the above article quote “Duffy and Bruns (2006) list several possible educational uses of wikis: • Students can use a wiki to develop research projects, with the wiki serving as ongoing documentation of their work. • Students can add summaries of their thoughts from the prescribed readings, building a collaborative annotated bibliography on a wiki. • A wiki can be used for publishing course resources like syllabi and handouts, and students can edit and comment on these directly for all to see. • Teachers can use wikis as a knowledge base, enabling them to share reflections and thoughts regarding teaching practices, and allowing for versioning and documentation. • Wikis can be used to map concepts. They are useful for brainstorming, and editing a given wiki topic can produce a linked network of resources. • A wiki can be used as a presentation tool in place of conventional software, and students are able to directly comment on and revise the presentation content. Parker & Chao 61 • Wikis are tools for group authoring. Often group members collaborate on a document by emailing to each member of the group a file that each person edits on their computer, and some attempt is then made to coordinate the edits so that everyone’s work is equally represented; using a wiki pulls the group members together and enables them to build and edit the document on a single, central wiki page.” Authors discuss the difference between blogs and wikis which developed about the same time. Blogs consist of posts, usually by one author, and comments on posts by readers. Posts are available in reverse chronological order with less ability to access by subject. Wikis are collaborative and subject oriented. However, the tools functionalities are converging.