Thing #8 - Wiki Wiki

I could definitely see a wiki in my future :-) I have a lot of ideas, but it would be very difficult to figure out where to start... I guess looking at several of the other wikis gives me lots of ideas of how to go about starting one.

I looked at seven of the wikis. I tended to favor the ones for elementary for the most part. I guess that's a good thing since I teach 5th grade. There were three in particular that peaked my interest. All for different reasons of course. Odd how that happens :-)

The one that I could "see and hear" student input the most was the wiki entitled Go West. This wiki is by a group of 3rd graders learning about the Oregon Trail. I can tell this was students led because of the wording and information provided. As picky as I am, I really appreciated how the teacher let the student aspect come through with minimal correction. The students were very thorough by providing a variety of information including recipes - incomplete ones, but recipes all the same! The teacher also did a good job teaching the students how to embed photos while correctly citing the source. Each page was a delight to read and I began thinking about my students working on a similar project this year.

Another wiki I enjoyed was called Code Blue by a group of 6th grade students learning about the human body. This was rather ingenious. Each group of kids had a "hospital" they named and each student was a different type of specialist at their hospital. The students had to learn about their field of specialty. It reminded me of a jigsaw activity, just on a higher level. The teacher also had the kids discus their medical education. I liked this aspect, because students who may be interested in going into the medical field really got some valuable information. There were also "patients" who had some pretty serious injuries. The students got very creative with this. All injuries were explained, but with a twist... students were taught why it is good to avoid drinking, what anorexia is, how to cope with diabetes... very educational. I liked this blog quite a bit.

Schools in the Past was an interesting read. I really liked the information it had to offer, but that is about all I enjoyed. I don't feel the teacher took full advantage of the wiki possibilities. There was only one page that I could find. I also thought the information was poorly organized. Instead of having all of the information on one page, there could have been pages added for each. I also wanted to know the time frame each statement was about; the 50's, 60's, 70's, etc. This wiki had a lot of possibilities that were just not followed through.

I have SO MANY questions!!!! I really want to do a wiki, but I want to be fully prepared before I begin :-) If you can shed some light on any of the following questions I have, please share!

Is one wiki enough for a class? Can each project have it's own page or does each need a separate wiki? What about next school year? Do I have to make a new page for each school year? Would I be able to designate different school years to different parts of the wiki, or would that just make the page confusing? HELP!!