Thing # 16 Wikis

Wikis are quickies and fun. The SBISD sandbox was certainly effortless. I have these ideas planned for the upcoming school year to introduce wikis in my elementary school: 1) a book club wiki for my fourth graders who meet after school once a month, 2) a book wish list for everyone who would like to make a selection suggestion to the librarian, and 3) a classroom daily learning log. Here's what I have in mind: I'll start with my 50 book club members. This way they can log in and comment when they finish a chapter at home and so forth. It will give us a lot more discussion than we get now because we only meet to distribute the book and then a month later to discuss, eat, have activities, etc. Some kids come to the meetings just for the fun, food, and etc. without having finished their books. Maybe this will help that aspect also. The wish list could start to open wikis up to the brave in my school at any level. The classroom learning log I think would work like this: 20 kids, 6 subjects a day (reading, language arts, math, science, social studies, and either art, music, PE, or health.tech) and 3 classroom computers. The teacher sets up a rotation so that every kid gets to wiki every day about what they learned in one of those subjects. The challenge is that only one student can be composing at a time. I'll bet they'll want to come into the room early, during lunch and recess, after school from home, etc. My school has a focus this year on writing, and in May learning journals with different colored pages for subjects were proposed. I think wikis just might motivate the students to write more than those paper/pencil journals with the pretty color papers. I suppose we'll start the year the tree-killing way, but I hope to TRANSITION a few teachers as we journey through the year. Agrab.