Week Five: Wonderful Wikis

I had fun this week with the creation of my wiki. I chose to do one for personal use but I can see many ways to use this for educational purposes. I set up a wiki to help coordinate a slumber party that all of the females in my family are having at the end of next month. We usually have 30-40 females in attendance that come from all over Texas so it was a great way to put the information out there and let the others fill in the blanks. I have already begun to implement it by inviting my sister and my mother to join the wiki and then I will continue to add the other family members as I collect e-mail addresses. I used wikispaces to do my wiki and it was very user friendly. I have used wetpaint in a previous class.

I can see many benefits to using wikis. I think it would be a great way to organize class parties and parent volunteers. My sister teaches Middle School and she would like to use a wiki to connect her classes with my first grade class on a project. The options are limitless. The main disadvantage of using wikis is the feeling of lack of control. There is also the fear of someone accidentally erasing what you have worked so hard to create.

Since wikis are so easy to use I can see a digital native being engaged with one. I think that digital natives are scared of the concept of "creating" a web page but if all they have to do is go in and add or edit the page it is not as scary.

While exploring the eLearning Tools wiki I uncovered several web2.0 technologies that I would like to explore. I was really interested in the Storytelling tools, Publishing tools, and Virtual Field Trips. Maybe over spring break I will get a chance to play with some of these other technologies from my house since so many of them are blocked by my school filter.