ideas for wikis in the classroom

In last weeks post I said that I would post ways to use wikis at school. I have a friend that teaches 9th Language Arts and she had a class wikispace last year. She had a lot of success using it for class discussions of literary reads. She felt like students felt "safer" posting their thoughts on the wiki than verbalizing them in class.
I have a link to a site that offers a plethora of ideas for wiki use in classroom. It is broken down by subject area. Click on this link, then click on basic:

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/

Happy reading

M.

wiki vs. blog

"How does a wiki compare to a blog? What are their different uses?
A blog is a time-based, sequential publication usually authored by one person, whereas information on a wiki is assembled and structured by a group of people. A blog is very much an online journal, and a wiki is similar to a whiteboard, except that it records everything that’s written on it, and lets you see the history of revisions.
In education, I see a blog being used to deliver news and updates to a class, and a wiki being used to work on projects, assignments, and notes."

retrieved from wikispace.com July 20, 2009.

wikispace for educators

We have had some discussion in class about the difference between a wiki and a blog. I mentioned that I have a classroom wikispace. (I do have access to my wiki through my school's server.) Since we are expert bloggers (*wink*) you might want to set up a wiki for your classroom or library.

I sat mine up in September 2008. I didn't use it as much as I intend and hope to do more with it this coming school year. I will post some ideas for usage in a future post.

For my wiki I utilize wikispaces.com. They offer free wikis for K-12 teachers. They allow teachers to choose a wikispace that is private and can only be accessed by members of your wiki. It is very easy to set up your wiki account and wikispaces.com offers tutorials to assist you with all aspects of personalizing and using your wiki.

Here is the link to the website if you are interested in learning more about wikis:

http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers


Happy Reading!
M.

Facebook

After all the "discussion" about Facebook in class today, I was reminded of the UCA LIBM FaceBook Group that Dr. Rickman maintains. If you are a FaceBooker and interested in joining the group, try this link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=125541580191
This is a closed group which means it is not available for the general public to join--membership is approved by Dr. Rickman.

Happy Reading!

M.

Booktalker's Guide

I don't know about your students', but mine love it when I do booktalks for them! And, I love doing booktalks! It is a great way to motivate them to read books they otherwise may have never picked up. So, I have set up a website with links to my favorite booktalking sites. I hope you will find them as useful as I do---they are great for getting ideas, motivation, or "borrowing" (giving credit, of course) when you don't have time to write your own booktalk.

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=002309573849625436696:1mr9vmquwim

Happy Reading!

M.

Did you ever play with paperdolls?

I came across this website and thought it was a nice little stress reliever...



http://www.librariandressup.com/

Happy Reading,

M.

Comic Strip

Hello Bloggers!

Check this link to a recent edition of Shelf Check-- a comic strip that is set in a library. I thought it was humorous!

Shelf Check

Happpy Reading!

M.


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