Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Thing 23

http://bhms-summer-read.wikispaces.com/

This is an incredible wiki on middle school reading for summer. It includes students and staff and is organized very well. I would love to do this for the students to encourage their reading and writing over the summer, but I think it is also a great way to encourage reading year round as well as share reviews/thoughts on books, with the entire school. I have been trying to find a way to integrate reading/technology/writing through out the school year to spread myself thinner. It's hard to run contests and keep up with the reading necessary for my position, and do instruction as well. This way we could share ideas with students and staff on books we have and encourage others to read them as well.

Amazingly, wikis are not blocked at our school and are use for tracting students assignments at both the high school and middle school. Several of us have done all the work so it would be great to instruct all teachers on this tool. I think the biggest concern I have is making sure about appropriateness, but that is a part of all the Web 2.o tools.

I would like to introduce this thing to my staff as they incorporate more collaborative work in their classes. Wikis work great for group work for both students and staff. The ability to set up a wiki that can be private to a particular group and then shared with all is a great tool for brainstorming and proofing a project before the actual presentation. Our 6th and 7th graders do a Capstone Project integrating Social Studies and Language Arts. Wikis would be a great tool to use between different classes who chose the same topic. That way we could have one large presentation and share the wiki with the Internet, which is part of the actual grade level content standard.

The collaborative power of the wiki makes any fight to have it available, worth the battle. Wikis will afford conversations with other cultures and sharing information and that is truly a 21st Century skill.

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