Blogs and Wikis in Education

1) Identify and describe 3 interesting/innovative way blogs/wikis are being used in K-12 classrooms.

One of the ways a blog/wiki can be used in the K-12 classroom is as a general information hub for class information, much like we did in our Teacher Web projects. In this way, when students are outside of class, they can access class materials, check out what work will be coming in the next week, and families can keep tabs on the homework and class-work their children are doing.

Another way a blog or wiki can be used in the K-12 classroom is as a jumping point to a higher grade. One blog I saw was “The First Year of College” and was an actual blog of a freshman college student, blogging their first year in college for everyone to read. This can be used in 12^th grade classrooms for students wanting to get a feel for how college life will be. It can be used to ask questions about that specific university/college, college life in general, the application process, and more.

One last way a blog or wiki can be used in the K-12 classroom is for collaborative projects with other classrooms around the country, or even the world. Two, three, or more teachers can get together with their classrooms and collaborate on projects together. Students could work with one another on these projects, even though they may live in different parts of the country/world. However, this would take an awful lot of planning and coordination to do well!

2) Describe how you might use RSS readers/aggregators within a classroom setting.

I would want to use the RSS readers/aggregators on websites that pertain to the subjects that we would go over in class. For example, if we were to go over the Solar System, Marin Life, and Civilizations of the World as some of our major subjects, I would want to find sites that pertained to those, with RSS feeds, and have them sent to a class e-mail system. The class would choose the top two sites for each subject and they would have access to these articles when doing research.

3) Describe at least 2 pros and 2 cons of using blogs and wikis in education.

One pro of using blogs and wikis in education is that it allows students access to new types of technology that they may not be used to or have never seen before. As our world goes forth into more and more technology, allowing students to experience these things that are new to us, or may be new, will help them be better prepared when newer and more efficient technologies come out. They will also be able to utilize these blogs and wikis for when they grow older, when they are out in the workforce, etc.

Another pro of using blogs and wikis in education is that it expands the number of tools we as teachers can use to educate our students! We can use them for projects, class-work, homework, and more. We can also use them for the general classroom use, as stated above in the first question. If we can utilize these tools correctly, it can complement our teaching rather nicely.

A con of using blogs and wikis in education is the time it takes to set up and maintain the blog and wiki. Setting up a blog or wiki takes no time at all. However, maintaining both while you may have other things going on in life outside of the classroom can become a huge hassle. I would not want to start a wiki or blog within the first few years of my teaching career until I figured my teaching style out first. However, that is a personal observation and others may feel differently.

Another con of using blogs and wikis is the fact that students may not have access to this information outside of class. Depending on where you end up teaching, some, most, or nearly all of your class may not have access to the Web outside of class and would not be able to get to your blog or wiki. This could pose problems for parents who won’t have access to important info they are suppose to read on the wiki/blog and pose problems for students who need to work on a project you may have posted on your wiki.