Thoughts on Wiki's

To begin with, I looked at an elementary page that was established by 2 teachers working with upper elementary students. It was well set up and provided resoruces for students as well as examples of student projects.

I also took a look at the wiki's from Greeley West High School. I specifically looked at 2 different science pages that teachers have developed. The first teacher used it as a way for students to post answers to research-based questions she posted. The second teacher used it as a way to document student projects. I specifically looked at some of projects from his biology class on Taxonomy. For both of these science pages, I found them well structured, however I did not think that projects and/or the questions were "academically rigorous." I did not think that the students were using higher level thinking skills to answer the questions posed or to complete the research projects.

I also liked the Princeton Public Library wiki and all the book reviews that were on this website. It was a decent sized resource for people looking to find out what other people thought about a particular report.

In regards to classroom and/or school uses, I can definitely see some positve ways to use wiki's. First of all, students can use it to help compile research for classroom projects. I don't think that using it as a way to display student research projects would be something I would do (at least not in the format the Greeley West teacher did). I can also see it as a great tool to use for teachers and professional development. For example, if you have a team of teachers who are working on a specific topic (differentiation for example) then teachers can contribute thougths and ideas to the wiki without having to meet in person as often. We all know how busy teachers are and how precious there time is outside the classroom so this would be very positive.