Week Seven, Thing Sixteen

First, I have to say that I am a bit ashamed with myself that I never sat down and put two and two together...I have been aware of and using wikis since I started this degree last year, and yet it never clicked that this is what Wikipedia is. Despite my shame, I now have even better ammunition when I forbid my students from using Wikipedia to do research...

Ok, embarrassment aside, but still talking about Wikipedia. I was a bit turned off by the layout of the St. Joseph County Library page, since it so closely resembles Wikipedia. I think, for me at least, the similarity in lay out sends the message to me that this information may be as potentially inaccurate as that on Wikipedia. Even in a quick and easy Wiki, layout matters and visual appeal can go a long way to make a page work for users.

I LOVE the sample literary circle Wiki for 10th grade English students. In fact, before looking at this page, I had already begun to conceive of a very similar idea for my middle school students. I hadn't thought about quite how to structure such an assignment, but this site has given me some great ideas. Now I just need to decide how to implement this: in small groups as a project, or as the whole class during a certain novel/unit.

Out of the classroom and into the media center, I could also see a lot of use for Wikis. For example, there could be a book recommendation Wiki for a school library, where students and staff could edit and post their opinions about different materials found in the library. For a public school, the Wiki would need to be constantly moderated by either the librarian or another adult, to make sure the postings are appropriate for school and district policy (no foul language, etc).

Bottom line is: I love the idea of a public Wiki, and I WILL be utilizing this technology with my students this year and in the future.