My Wiki Experience...

Wikispaces is a neat educational tool which encourages and allows its users to exercise their collaboration skills. Teachers assign wikis to classrooms because students can publish their ideas and thoughts all onto one digital notebook. It is an easy way for students to learn from one another and present their ideas accordingly. Using wikis is another great way to create an active learning atmosphere as students not only enjoy and have fun using the tool but come together in getting involved and participating with one another.
There are multiple ways teachers can incorporate a wikispace within their lessonplans:

• Creating presentations
• Reader's guides
• Glossaries
• Peer editing
• Virtual field trips
• Feedback
• Participation activities
• Project activites
• Classroom policies
• Collecting information

And the list could go on forever!

Here is my very own contribution to a wikispace my class and I did together. We were each asked to write a brief explanation about the web 2.0 tool we explored; I wrote about Bitstrips. By the end of the activity, we had a whole page about various web tools. The experience was great! Wikispaces are so easy to access, join and navigate through. I got into the site and was quickly able to start reading posts my peers were publishing as well as contributing my own thoughts as well.

I was able to add my initials to my post for my teacher as well as classmates to know who the post belonged to. As you could see, the layout is like a virtual notebook which is pretty cool! We all took part in filling the page; emphasizes the idea of working as a team! I think this tool is a such an amazing way to have your class work together and learn from one another. It helps students build on prior knowledge and learn from each other. Teaching them that it is okay and completely possible to learn from your surroundings and those around you!