If I’m completely honest, I’ll have to admit that I never really think about Wikis one way or the other- and sometimes even forget that they exist. Even though I use Wikipedia on a fairly regular basis, I have (for some reason) come to think of it as just another website rather than a Wiki.
In discussing Wikis this week in class, it has forced me to consider ways they can be used in a classroom or library setting. Since I had basically forgotten they existed, I obviously had not been considering ways to perhaps use them in my own library one day. In my search, these were some of the things I found schools were using wikis for:
- Group projects and collaboration
- Group discussions
- School newsletter/newspapers
- Student journaling
- As a place to ask and answer school/homework related questions
- As a place to share helpful educational links, homework assignments, and class notes
Obviously these ideas are quite broad, but teachers and librarians can takes these ideas to start with and use them to supplement whatever units they are teaching at the moment. One of my personal favorites is using a wiki to create a class “textbook.” For example, pretend you are teaching a unit on plants. You could assign each student a different plant and have them find pictures of that plant online, post it to the wiki, and then have them write a short paragraph about that particular plant. The paragraph could include things like a description of the plant, where it is usually found, what type of climate it does best in, etc. This is something that could be used with pretty much any topic, in any subject- and in the end, you’ll end up with a class created “textbook!” On this same note, a librarian could use a wiki as a place for students to post their own book reviews. After a student read a book, they could post a picture of the book cover along with their review for other students to read!
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