Wrote this as a separate page, but couldn’t find where it was published. So I’m publishing it again on the main page. So much for understanding how to publish on the blog.
Creating classroom wikis for two high school subjects could be a valuable resource or a time-sucking waste of instructor’s time. Providing demonstrations, templates and examples may reduce the fear factor for some students. Being aware of how important naming conventions are for the wiki pages will help users find what they need and name their new contributions correctly so others can find their work.
To insure that students participate in creating the wiki the carrot and stick approach may work. Providing an opportunity for students to receive credit similar to the Duke Stars system or extra credit is the carrot, requiring the students contribute to building a glossary or other assigned page is the stick approach.
Ran a dogpile search, while trying to figure out why “Virtual Ed Blog site” has been on my iGoogle “to do list” for about four-weeks, and found Terra Nova. It’s a blog site that focuses on educational applications of virtual worlds. It has a group of active writers and contributing writers, which seems like a hybrid wiki/blog site. I’m not sure if Cathy discussed this site during one of our MULEs meetings. But, the posts were informative. One pointed me to Google Lively a new Virtual environment for chat similar but simpler than Second Life. Made me wish I had PCs in my classroom. My students are going to participate in an Artist Trading Card (ATC) activity through Tapped In with students from Australia, Canada and Italy. At this point we are using postal delivery for the exchange, and will set up chat rooms for the students to “talk” afterwards. Lively sounds like it would be a good way to run the Chat, but even though it will run well on FireFox, it’s not ready yet for Macs.
