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__ Wikis in Elementary Education __
Welcome to our wiki! Read on to learn more about how you can use a wiki in YOUR classroom!

Definition: A wiki is a website developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content.



__**Research Articles**__

Two peer reviewed journal articles were consulted in an effort to further understand the background of wiki use in education. Abstracts of those articles are below.


 * __A Wiki for Classroom Writing.__ By: Brian Morgan and Richard D. Smith, in** **The Reading Teacher, 2008.**

Targeting the elementary schools an as audience for wikis, this article touches on the ease of wiki use, and the comparison of a wiki to a word processing software, but with the capability to be easily accessed and edited by peers students, teachers, administrators, and parents. It discusses the advantage of a wiki in helping students collaborate to compose a single document, or to help their peers by offering comments and feedback on individual documents. The access and permissions of specific wikis can be easily controlled by the teacher, to provide a safe working environment for the students. Focusing on the core principle of wikis, collaboration, can encourage more frequent and free participation between students.


 * __Educators Assess ‘Open Content’ Movement__. By: Andrew Trotter, in** **Education Week, January 2009.**

Addressing the “Open Content” movement as a whole, and focusing on wikis as one method of open-content, this article discusses the “small but growing movement of K-12 educators” who are working with and becoming attached to the idea of free websites that promote sharing. Wikis, in addition to other open-content outlets, are a great tool for teacher collaboration and professional growth, where they can share back with the teaching community and beyond their discoveries (specifically discussing science and biology findings). This sharing allows teachers to take ownership of their findings. In elementary education, wikis such as FreeReading allow teachers to collaborate and share curriculum ideas with the goal of improving reading resources for educators.

__**Best Practices**__

There are many creative ways to utilize the wiki within the classroom. Below I have two education wiki examples, one is a teacher that used the wiki as the lesson through creating a list of 1,000 real life names and the second was used for a 6th grade classroom to show current events, what they were learning and even gave their homework.

Grade: 1st Grade Location: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada Target Population: Other grade school children around the world URL: http://1000names.wikispaces.com/

Kathy Cassidy, a first grade teacher from Moose Jaw, Canada found an innovative way to show her students what the number, “1,000” looks like by seeing 1,000 real life names. She did this by hosting a worldwide wiki for other students to add their names onto the wiki list. Currently the list is up to 1,790 real life names, thus this the lesson is continuing even further than they expected! What is even more interesting about this wiki is that without even being prompted, some students wrote their names, their age and even where they are from. I believe this brought on a new dimension to the wiki because although the wiki itself does not discuss in detail where the students are from, knowing their location can bridge new conversations in the classroom about other parts of the country and world.

Home Page

End Page – Currently at 1,790! Notice the second to last person Henry who is from China!

School Name: Wilson Elementary School Grade: 6th grade class Location: Cincinnati, OH – Forest Hill’s School District Target Population: The 6th grade class and family, other 6th grade classrooms around the world. URL: http://wilson6.wikispaces.com/

A 6th grade class at Wilson Elementary School in Cincinnati, OH created a wiki to, “read, write and share information”, with others around the world. All the students are admin’s on the page and able to edit and add anything that they choose. The page discussed what the students were currently doing (when it was active) as well as provided information on the different subject areas and even gave their homework! This wiki is a great example of a way a classroom can use a wiki for the students and parents as well as to share and gain knowledge from others.

Home Page

Homework Page

Example of subject Page - Writing

__**Technology Tools**__

A few technology tools that could be used to create a wiki are, wikispaces, pbwiki or wikipedia. Website Name: Wikispaces URL: Http:www.Wikispaces.com Screenshot: Wikispaces is a website that allows users to create their own wiki. Their motto is, "the free, easy way to get your classroom online". Users have the option of editing their wiki's, controlling permissions and privacy, and adding hyperlinks and media. Wikispace is teacher friendly and has specific privacy and ad-free options for educators.

Website Name: pbwiki URL: Https:my.pbwiki.com Screenshot: Pbwiki is a website that makes creating wiki's as easy as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It is used by businesses and corporations to create private wiki's for their employees as well as by educational groups and universities. It is run on a freemium basis, so basic creating of the wiki is free but advanced options are offered for a fee.

Website Name: wikipedia URL: Http:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Screenshot: Wikipedia is a website that's motto is the free encylopedia that anyone can edit. It is a multilingual and it is written and edited collaboratively by any internet users regarding topics of their choice. WIkipedia is one of the largest reference websites attracting people from around the world. It is used for all purposes including business, private and education.//

__** Assistive Technology **__
When integrating technology in the classroom, it is always important to be aware of students who might have special needs and how the technology can be adapted for his/her use. For example, our group researched how to use Wikis in a classroom with a visually impaired student. In this scenario, the student is legally blind and can only see up to one foot away from her. She is unable to see the chalkboard or the whiteboard from her desk. It is suggested that she may need large print (16-18pt and up), audio, or Braille assistance. If the students are working on a Wiki in the classroom, which only has one computer, the teacher would involve the class by using the multimedia projector to display the Wiki. The visually impaired student, however, would not be able to see the projected image and would, therefore, be unable to participate. If the class was working with the individual computers in the lab, this student may still have trouble seeing the screen. There is assistive technology available that can offer assistance to a visually impaired child who would like to work on a Wiki or participate in a class Wiki. The assistive technology is Universal Access on Mac OS X, particularly the Voice Over program.

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**__Benefits of This Technology:__** The Universal Access function on Mac OS X is an incredibly beneficial form of assistive technology for the visually impaired student as it will allow her to both magnify the screen that she is working on as well as having the text read aloud to her. Universal Access has “seeing” and “hearing” tabs to assist the student. The “seeing” tab has a zoom option that magnifies the screen up to 40 times. There are also options for how the screen will move and where the cursor will go as you type as well as the option to magnify the cursor independently. The student can also enhance the contrast or change the display to black on white to help with visual clarity. The “seeing” tab includes VoiceOver, a screen-access technology that gives the visually impaired control of their computer. It is a text-to-speech technology that involves dragging a finger around the trackpad to have a description of that part of the screen read out loud. As you drag, you will hear the placement of the items on the screen. The program also has built in support for Braille displays. Simply connect the Braille display to the Mac and VoiceOver will pick it up and read out the name of the key that your finger is on. VoiceOver is highly beneficial to the student because it allows her to work independently when we take our class to work on computers in the lab. With this technology, the student will be able to find out what is on the Wiki and will be able to contribute to it. The magnification tool is also useful because in order to work on the Wiki in the classroom, there is only one computer to use and a multimedia projector. The teacher would be able to use the zoom feature to enlarge the screen and then project it so that both the class and the student would be able to view the Wiki from their seats.



Cartoon Source: Published in Print: April 5, 2006 wmsmilc7wiki.pbworks.com Resources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIKI