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This is Janelle saying hello.    **//Possible uses in my curriculum: students can contribute to biographical data base regarding composers/literature, humanities students can collaborate on numerous projects, music theory students may hold a digital critique of assigned works displaying compositional devices which the instructor has assigned. Steve Jones//**

I am not sure how I might use a wikispace. I thought I might try to set up one for astronomy where the students could post articles about astronomy they find on science or news websites. They are always discovering something new. Laurie

I'm confused about this whole wiki-wookie business. I think that may just be the fog of being gone for over a week... I think the idea of a wiki is good but think I'll wait for the GHS version to try to really get it under control. I'm not sure how I will use this in class but possibly for students to comment on readings. ~Amy Murray

I absolutely love the WIKI idea but am a bit confused how it differs from GoogleDoc. Is the only difference that it can support a link? Either way-classroom parties, school donations, project contributions, etc. would be so much easier and less time consuming than massive e-mails. Another cool THING!!! Thanks! KWilbern

You are right...this tool would make organizing parties etc SO much easier! Since I work closely with the other speech therapists in the district (but we all happen to be spread among all schools...)...using this tool to coordinate time shifts for things like pre-k screenings or which info to add for in-services would be GREATLY beneficial! I am going to look like a superstar using all of these fun new tools I have learned in our 17 Things class this upcoming year... :) Jordan

===**Can you imagine how much easier it would to plan a holiday party for elementary classrooms? Last year I sent way too many group emails asking for volunteers. This could actually make the planning organized and efficient. I think it would work great for current events, book reviews, classroom debates, science lab results done at home, etc.**===
 * C Day﻿**

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Wikis are great… nice thing about them is that this isn’t new to the net so, unlike some of the stuff in this class, I have found this topic more easy to understand. In general what I like about this class is that I keep adding tools to my lackluster I.T. tool box. I personally have warned my students not to use Wikipedia for research because it could be false info and I feel like it encourages the ease to plagiarize. As a history teacher I could use this to make up a Wiki site on maybe Lincoln or Washington with content that is about 1000 words long. I could purposely put false info in it and then let the students know that there are false facts in the Wiki text. They could then go in and try to figure out what is false and edit it for extra credit. Hypothetically, I could put in 50 wrong facts and put a cap of only 5 points or edits for each student. I could put a new one up each quarter and being that it tracks the edits I could track which student gets the points and how much he/she gets.- Ron M. ======

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Wow! Looks like I get to make the first footsteps in the sand(box)!.... MeToo!

One of the strengths of using our homegrown wikis with the "new" webpages is that staff and students would not need to have another login/password/profile/etc for another website... we would just use our webpage ones. Also, I believe student contributions would be anonymous to everyone except their teacher.

If you can think of a use for a wiki (classroom or otherwise) that cannot be accomplished more easily with a GoogleDoc, please list it below. Thanks, // Chris Luzio //
 * Creating a collaborative yet public webpage.

Is there any legal concern about assigning a student to post thoughts and work on a public webpage? Would it be better to use the private forums for classroom use? Also, as a contributor I cannot see who posted the other comments, so I'll sign my name to this - but can the creator tell anyway, making my signature redundant? ~ Hannah Fishburn

Question about wikis...is this something that we would have to set up an account for each student? Would we just assign each student a log-in, email, and password? It would be much easier for these teacher-friendly websites to have 25 generic usernames and passwords for us to assign to our students. Any ideas on how to make this easier for classroom use? It is a great tool for collaborative work!
 * **Answer about wikis:** With the "new" school webpages, making a wiki for students to use is easy (once that component of the website has been installed) and students will log in with their school login/password combination. Since SchoolFusion makes student submissions "anonymous" (using code names), only the teacher will be able to tell who did what... this is for privacy (the wiki could be made public for the whole internet) and to encourage participation. Most of my knowledge is just from what Mr. Hruby told me about it though.. because I don't think the wiki component was working when school ended. -//Chris Luzio//

The possibilities with this are endless. You could pretty much set up a wiki and do everything you wanted to accomplish related to a class and use it. The only question I have is will students use it if it is out there? Seems like we would need to train the students on how to use it and take it from there.

I agree that there are endless possibilities in how wikis can be used. We would need to train students using some simple tasks and then build from there. Even in 4th grade, we do many collaborative projects. My concern is that we still have students who don't have Internet access at home. Since I'm moving to a new building this year, I'm not sure about how computer lab availability. My goal is to find a way to introduce wikis to my 4th graders this year. //Joan Parks//

===I am not comfortable with my WIKI knowledge. I have set up a new wiki for myself but really do not know where to start. I guess I will just jump in when I get a few moments to get more acclimated. Posted on my blog the idea of posting a few topics and letting students use the wikis as a KWL chart. Each student being responsible for some addition.===

Dave Laub
I don't know about you all, but for me the word WIKI is just funny for me to say. It sort of reminds me of the Wookies in Star Wars. As Chris mentioned above, when I was watching the video about Wikis, the first thing that came to mind was that it is very similar to Google Docs. Hope you all can stay cool this week, it's supposed to be really HOT all week! Kim Clausen

Every year, as we are learning about figurative language, I have students look for different types in the novel they are reading. They end up writing them on a sticky note, which is easy to share with me, but unless I stick it under the doc camera, no other students benefit from it. This would be a great way to have students share what they find. - Terra Seidel

I worked on a wiki page during my final class at UIS, but was not really understanding the end results. The simple video that we watched was really helpful and I liked the example about the trip. My family tends to go on a big vacation over Christmas Break and using a wiki page would be helpful!!!

***On a fun and personal note....my sister (Devery) had a baby girl on Sunday. Her name is Aubrey Charmian and everyone is doing fine:) Aubrey's big sisters- Kameryn and Bronwynn- already love her!!!! Having so much fun!

-Meredith

===** ﻿I can see the benefit of wikis, especially if you are interested in collaboration from a group of people. I was going to set up a wiki, but I had a hard time thinking of where to start. I may need to wait until schools starts back up to get my brain working again! -Liz Barnes **===

I have a book; //Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms//; by Will Richardson, which I've had for almost a year. I had begun to read it last summer but got busy with classes, and I ended up putting it down until this summer. One suggestion for using Wikis was to create an online text for a given curriculum that teachers and students both contribute to. Another example of how it can be used is for students and teachers to write comprehensive reviews for AP exams... but it wouldn't have to be an AP exam. What if our students, from the beginning of class as each topic/section/chapter was completed, contributed what they believed to be important "stuff" to prepare for semester exams? What if our students felt like they could explain how to solve a particular type of problem in a different way, or dare I say //better//than the teacher? Suppose they wrote their own explanations, found/created their own examples, etc. They might add their own graphics, videos, links, etc. and begin to create a multimedia document that becomes a powerful teaching tool for the future, or at the very least, gives future students another approach or resource (differentiation). Here is a link (I hope I did it correctly) to a wiki that could give someone some ideas!! [] Stephanie Hagan

Wiki's are not a new thing for me. My daughter's 5th grade teacher used a wiki the entire year so that we could (as parents) do the things we needed to without sending massive amounts of e-mails back and forth....[|holiday parties], homework assignments involving more than one child, classroom news, etc. I think they are a great tool for the classroom and through this class I can also tell my team how the wiki can help us - and save time- if we all utilize it. Alison Anderson

It looks like most of the observations I had regarding wikis have already been covered above. I'm super late to this party. Regardless, I am really excited about the idea of using a wiki to have students create their own study guides. -Grant Godar