Professional Journal Entry #5 - Wikispaces

Song - Newcleus Jam On Revenge (The Wikki-Wikki Song)

Reason - It's a song with Wiki (sp) in it.  Finding songs, pics or videos to connect to a project is Ruth's influence from TCH 416. 

1.       HOME LINK – www.wikispaces.com    MY LINK - http://hradwiki.wikispaces.com/

2.       LIKE ABOUT THE TOOL I like the tool in many ways.  I like that it was easy to set up.  I like that I can sign in my students and I don’t have to worry about emails.  From what I’ve read and explored a little, I like that there seems to be a lot of options for management, privacy, student collaboration and student engagement. It is also a bonus that there is a specific classroom component and that it is free of charge!

3.       DON’T LIKE  It was easy to set up, but I am still not quite sure about how to use it/make the most of it.  That part wasn’t so clear. 

4.       SUMMARY – As I said, it was pretty straight forward to set up (though I did accidentally create two wiki spaces).  I read through all sections of the program description as well as reviewed all settings.  I hopped out to Google to track down a video that summed up using wikis collaboratively.  I definitely want to take more time to explore this tool.  It appears that it is a very popular tool, so I need to take more time to research it and actually use it with my students.  I’d like to specifically explore setting up a project, working collaboratively and the assessment component.  I believe that this could be very useful in my LRC, but I need to better understand it.  I’d also like to check out how I can use it for parents to view student projects.  I just need to take more time with it.  There were FAQs that helped. More specifically, the Teacher FAQs were helpful and I plan to refer to those often. 

5.       FUTURE USE – Though I am not entirely sure what wiki is capable of, I do believe I could use this with my 4^th and 5^th grade students at a minimum.  I could see using it to inform parents and students of activities and projects taking place in the LRC.  I would like to use it for students to collaborate in teams (I already set up 3 – 4^th grade teams).  Finally, I’d like to use it to assess the students.