Article: What is a Wiki?

Article 4: What is the role of emerging technologies (think Facebook, iPhones, videogaming, and online learning) in K-12 education?

YouTube: pb wiki-What is a Wiki? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmByB0sIPog

Pre-viewing note: Yippee! I am finally going to learn what a Wiki is!

Post viewing notes: Ok. Now I know a little about Wikis. I guess I knew they were an online collaboration tool designed more for groups than for individuals, unlike blogs which seems to be geared more toward one person’s thought-sharing. I like the idea of a class being able to build and discover an idea together electronically. I also heard one of the contributors say a Wiki is “quick-y”, meaning that you can put all of your content – including hyperlinks, definitions, etc. – onto the page so that the entire idea is located in one place – rather then on various sheets of paper or across many computer screens. It was also great to hear that Wikis are pretty easy to build and use – I imagine they are similar to blogs in that they require some set-up originally, but are easy to maintain once they are operational.

Issues…

Are posts “approve-able” before they are public? Can teachers moderate the posts and check relevance and appropriateness before the entire class views the post?

Are Wikis private or open to any web lurker?

Does the technology run smoothly? Will the websites get bogged down if 22 kids in one classroom are online simultaneously?

Overall, this seems more appropriate for my classroom use than a blog would be – but I haven’t really investigated the Wiki-phenomenon enough yet to be sure of that answer. More to learn…