My thoughts on Chapter 4 of "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts"

                Now that we have done multiple readings about technology, I am feeling much more confident in the different ways I can use technology in my classroom. This chapter truly helped me see how many different and unique ways technology can be used. Luckily, I have already created a Wiki for my Education 302 class. Therefore, I have had the opportunity to use & experience how a wiki is created first hand. Although my wiki is in the very beginning stages, it was still helpful to have some background knowledge while reading this chapter. Since I already knew a few things about the creation of a wiki, the aspect of this chapter that I took most interest in was the various ways that wikis can be used within a classroom. When I was introduced to my own wiki, I was only showed & told about how to use it as a professional tool. I was showed how to input various resources I have used & I wasn’t given much direction in other ways I can use my wiki. (This is why my wiki barely has anything on it!) This chapter really opened my mind to the creative aspect of using a wiki in the classroom.

        One way I plan to use this new information is to create an ongoing research project in my classroom using a wiki. I would like to teach upper elementary or middle school in the future, so this would be a great class project for us to do. In the beginning of the school year, I would have a class discussion about the various topics that our class would like to research. Then, as a class, we would create a research question based upon one of the topics the students would like to know more about. As the year progresses the students will research this topic. As they come across new information they will add it to our class wiki. Similar to how the chapter describes, the students will be able to edit & add to our wiki as much as they like. I plan on having the wiki be public among other readers, but I plan on only allowing my students to be able to edit the wiki. This may change depending on how my students feel; if my class feels as though they would like others to be able to contribute to our wiki than that is something I will seriously consider. I think this project would be a fun, creative, & enjoyable learning experience for all students. I loved learning about wikis throughout this chapter. Just a few weeks ago imagined this same research project, but it would be created through a blog. Now that I have learned more about wikis it makes much more sense to use a wiki instead! How exciting!