Thing #8

Wikis and Readers and Blogs, Oh my! Well it seems there is another technological advancement of which I was unaware (Surprise). Wikis, or "quick reads" as translated in Hawaiian, are similar to blogs except the "commenter" has the ability to also be the "blogger". I hope I'm keeping up with the jargon.
As I searched around for some wikis, I found one where a group of 6th graders made up their own medical clinic. Inside I found different types of doctors and their specialty. Each doctor dealt with different aspects to the human body. As a kid, I would have found that amazing, as an adult I find that impressive.
I continued on my self-made quest, to see which of the wikis was clearly the best. After a while I began to feel like a goose until that is, a wiki for Seuss!!! I read the wiki, with nary a jerk, amazed at the detail of the childrens' work. Videos and stories were there clear as could be. Even a spelling error, corrected by me.
After this jubilant excursion, I pressed on to find a wiki for 1st graders dealing with comparisons of schools today and the past. Did you know that children didn't have wikis in the past? One woman even wrote in to tell that there were only 12 students in a classroom. Wow! How do I go back in time?
Some of the things I noticed while searching wikis were that the tools to edit and make a page were so simple to use, that even I could do it, (and I did). The pages were organized by subject which made browsing very simple and easy to move on to topics. I feel that a student asked to partake in both the making and editing of wikis would take pride in the work done and would be better off for the knowledge gained. I don't know that I would necessarily change anything from the wikis I saw. I do have some ideas for how it would be used in the classroom. One thing I would love to do is have verb conjugation charts, and stories where students could change/add/correct verb conjugations that were shown. It would be a Spanish editing page. Could I tell who had done what? I would need to have some sort of guidelines to keep kids honest and not mess around. Cool Cat Teacher gives warnings for such behavior, maybe I could send her an e-mail?