Wikis

A wiki is a website that is set up and monitored by an administrator but can be edited by any number of authors. One of the most well known wikis is of course Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a free, online, collaborative encycolpedia that relies on all Internet users to collaborate and contribute in order to create what is one of the most extensive resources available.

Becuase authors can be anyone, with any background or knowledge (or lack there of) all information should be checked against other authorative information. Having said that, research has shown that Wikipedia is a very good source of a broad range of information.

Wikipedia is just one example of a wiki. You can use hosting sites to create your own wiki to use as a teaching and learning tool in your classroom.

Some examples of wikis set up by teachers include the following:

http://pac-itgs.wikispaces.com/

http://pac-tok.wikispaces.com/

A well trusted wiki hosting site is wikispaces.

Blogs for all teachers

Blogs are commonly used in English and Humanities based subjects; however, many people have shown where blogs can be useful for any subject area.

Check out the links below to see some examples of blogs for learning:

http://paclibraryblog.blogspot.com/
This is the blog I created as part of the Princes Virtual Library. Sadly it is lacking in any recent entries but it had a good response when it was initially set up.

http://10english07.blogspot.com/
I set up this blog to use with my Tear 10 English Text and Society Class in 2007. Each Friday they were given a blogging task. They set up their own blogs, read the task set and then answered the questions. The focus was on getting them thinking critically and getting them writing. They were also required to read and comment on other students’ blogs each week.

http://www.james02.blogspot.com/
One example of a blog set up by one of my Year 10s.

http://www.toddysblog.blogspot.com/
A second example of a blog set up by one of my Year 10s.

http://www.complexityblog.com/
This blog is about the science, engineering and philosophy of complexity. It may be of use to senior science teachers.

http://wordpress.com/tag/maths/
This is an index of blogs about maths.

http://shopkins.wordpress.com/
The blog of a languages teacher – excellent example!!

http://mzochowski.wordpress.com/
This blog has been created by a Science teacher

http://ccps.org/teachers/kstansfield/Web/Blog/Blog.html
This blog has been created by a PE teacher

http://mellis1957.wordpress.com/
This blog has been created by a History teacher

What is web 2.0?

Web 2.0 refers to the technologies that have developed through the Internet over the past 10 years. The Internet was originally a domain for publishing information via web pages and enabling communication via email.

When people refer to web 2.0 they are refering to the functions of the Internet that allow us to communicate, share and colaborate in a host of ways. This might include such things as:

• Instant messaging eg msn or twitter
• Blogging
• Online collaborative documents eg wikis
• Learning tools eg moodles
• Social networking sites eg Facebook or MySpace

This is just a few examples of how people are interacting on the Internet, there are many more and these are continuing to develop at a rapid pace.

Students are comfortable with a growing number of these tools and the language and ettiquette that comes with them and so they can be used as very powerful learning tools in our classrooms.

The idea of the classroom can extend beyond the 4 walls that make up the physical space, making the learning time away from you and the classroom more powerful than ever before.

The following slideshow is an incredible resource to introduce you to a lage number of tools that you could be using with your students:

http://www.slideshare.net/zaid/101-free-learning-tools-presentation/#

Begin Blogging

Are you ready to begin your first blog?

Have a think about the purpose of your blog. What do you want to achieve? Who are you communicating with? I would recommend checking out blogs that are hosted by other educators to get an idea of how they organise their blogs and what their purpose is for hosting one in the first place.

There are some other points that you need to consider in setting up your blog:

• What software are you going to use? Different options have various advantages and disadvantages about them.
• Is this blog for you to communicate to students, parents, staff? Is it a one way line of communication or is it interactive?
• What rules will you put in place to keep a level of anonymity to your page?

See below for links to a number of blog hosting sites:

https://www.blogger.com/start
The home page for Blogger.

http://edublogs.org/
The home page for Edublogs.

http://wordpress.com/
The home page for WordPress.