Wikis in the Classroom

Presenter: Janice Friesen from Eanes ISD in Austin, TX

http://jfriesen.net

Janice started the session off by going to Wikipedia to explore the most well-know wiki of them all. The purpose of this was to help those that didn't quite grasp the concept of a wiki to gain an understanding of a wiki. We also discussed literacies and what those might look like for our kids these days when it comes to being literate in the 21st century. One of the things Janice pointed out is the fact that online reading is often times different from print reading because with online reading, there is a lot of skimming going on to find the content of the website. She even mentioned that now she has to discipline herself to read printed material instead of skimming a document.

Janice also encouraged exploration of other wikis that are posted on her page. This gave participants good ideas of all the different things wikis could be used for including family websites for families that are far apart, a place for clubs to exhisit on the web, and planning pages for events to name a few. Once participants had a good idea of all the possibilities that wikis bring to the table, she then encouraged exploration of educational wikis that are posted on her site.

She also encouraged discussion about what was found on the educational wikis. After an overview of the three main wiki sites (www.pbwiki.com, www.wetpaint.com, and www.wikispaces.com) she encouraged the participants to create their own wiki and answered questions as they came up.

I think it is interesting to note that we should be talking a lot about literacy in technology sites.  It is certainly different to read on the web rather than in paper format.  We usually have different purposes and different strategies.  Proofreading on the computer is murder for me.   Wanda