Wikis

I enjoyed reading Richardson's Wiki chapter. Over the last couple of years I have felt like Wikis are a HUGE no-no in the classroom. I have to admit that I look at Wikipedia frequently when I need a quick answer to a question. For example, my students are ALWAYS asking me questions and often I do not know the answer. I can quickly go to Wikipedia and find a good response...and my kids think I'm a genious!

I liked what Richardson said about allowing students to use Wikipedia. I feel better about it after he mentioned how credible it typically is. If major journals and media allows it, why can't we. If we are living in the digital age, isn't time that we do things differently than we did before?

It has also been pointed out to me that at the bottom of a Wikipedia page there are references. This is a great tool itself as students can click on these links to other information that might be helpful in research.

Last year a teacher at my campus created wikis with her students. She teaches 4th grade so they were studying Texas History. Her class worked in groups as the did a "bike tour" across Texas. The information they found was entered into a wiki created by the students. This was a highly engaging activity for her students.

I have always been so curious about wikis and I am certainly interested in having my students create them. I am not sure how to do it, but I'm excited to learn more about it. I would love to hear from people who have created wikis with their students, so I will put the question out there. Has anyone created a wiki with their students?

In the meantime, I am not going to shy away from letting my students use Wikipedia. I don't think it should be the only site they research, but it is certainly worthy of a look.