Thing 21

The idea of sharing input online with colleagues to create documents and such makes perfect sense. I did not need to be convinced of that. The question that I posed to myself was "how might I use this with my students?".

I really enjoyed exploring the Arbor Heights Wiki. It has so much information about the happenings in the school all located on one site. So many times we send home information solely on a piece of paper or even worse, by telling the students and hoping that they will relay the important information home. This makes things clear and concise for students, parents and school staff. I was wondering how it might be used by a group of people then I thought...it has to be. The P.T.S.A. would be using it to promote their events, Arts, P.E., Classroom Teachers and Coaches etc. would need to use it to promote happenings. By having only one person in charge of an informational site can mean that info never gets put up when they have a busy schedule or forget something. It might be important that the overall feel of the WIKI be agreed to and that trustworthy people are trained and have a common understanding of its purpose. This is where the overseer must come into play. It will take a minute to get use to giving group input but it will be worth the effort! When the info is there the community frustration of "not knowing" gets reduced.

I also really liked the idea of Wikihow. I can see myself starting a "How to" manual for my Instrument classes. How to put a reed on a clarinet, How to form the correct embouchure for the flute...the students would be responsible for creating it using information that they already know or just learned. Even the smallest bit of info could make a world of difference for many students!