I recently created my own wikispaces page for a class project. I turned to the web for some inspiration. There, I found three wiki pages that are worth mentioning. The first is eSandbox. The name alone suggests a fun place for educators to meet and discuss ideas. The eSandbox wiki has quite a bit of information with three pages that especially caught my attention. They provided information about Web 2.0, digital storytelling, and PLNs. These are some of the major concepts of my graduate course and they were being discussed by professionals in the teaching field. The digital storytelling page has information on how to start a digital story, as well as a sample for viewing. Personally, I think knowing where to begin can be a challenge, so I appreciated this information. There are also “sandbox” sessions for educators on copyright laws, google maps, and web 2. tools.
Mrs. Lawson’s professional wiki page for RMS Staff Development is a wiki created by a school media specialist. This wiki houses information for her school’s professional development. Some of the development offered to the staff has been on copyright laws and acceptable use and Wordle. It is a convenient site for teachers to access information when they are planning to use it in their classrooms. I also found information for staff about the tool Animoto, which is a free tool to make videos. This was a tool that I utilized in a prior project. I felt that it would be good to use in a middle school, as did Mrs. Lawson. They are hosting a summer institute with information about how to make a wiki page and engage students. Having just created my own class wiki, I feel this would be a valuable course for any teacher to attend.
Lastly, I stumbled upon HMSD Media Specialists Wiki. This is a wiki for all of the media specialists in the school district to use. It is an innovative way to connect the school media specialists and allow the easy flow of information and ideas. According to the wiki space it is a “space to be used to share our files, images, lessons, handouts, rubrics, presentations, online resources, etc.. in a common area.” This is a great example of media specialists engaging in 21st century learning skills. There are great resource pages for Internet safety and copyright laws. I also enjoyed finding information on webquests, unfortunately, the link was inactive. I could tell that this is district who is addressing the needs of today’s learners because there was a section dedicated to mobile learning, specifically involving iPads and iPods for the classroom.
Whatever your need, there is probably a wikispace for it, if not, go to wiki spaces and create your own free page today!
slm508red 