Wiki Wisdom: Lessons for Educators

This article was a great eye-opener about the benefits and potential problems of wiki pages.  Although I have trouble sometime incorporating technology into my lesson plans, a classroom wiki is a great opportunity to not only use technology but receive participation from students as well.  Wikis are collaborative web pages to share loads of information.  As mentioned in the article, Wikipedia, which I personally use on a daily basis, is a great example of a wiki page.  Wikipedia shows us how large and worldwide a wiki can actually grow!

In one of my previous classes, I was assigned to create my own wiki-page.  The site itself was relatively easy to navigate, and the steps the build the page were straight forward.  After working with the site for a little while, I was really able to get the hang of things and build on my own creativity.  In a teaching perspective, a wiki is a great way to build upon students creativity as well.  I see a huge future for wikis in the education field.  It is the perfect tool for team collaboration and additional technology use!

Teens' Bold Blogs Alarm Area Schools

I was very excited to read this article, because I am very against the whole idea of online blogging (specifically facebook, myspace, Twitter).  When used by adolescents or immature people, these websites can be very dangerous since people are posting personal information and pictures of themselves on the internet for the entire world to view.  In the article, it states that private schools have begun to take action against online blogging, but the reality of the situation is that children are only in a school setting for a portion if the day.  When that child goes home or to any setting with a computer or online access, the school has no control over what that child does online.  Although the effort is appreciated, it really becomes the job of the parents/guardians to monitor what their children are doing.  If a child or teenager has a facebook or any other kind of blog, the parents should have full access to it and view what it is their child is posting, and judge whether or not it is appropriate for the public to see.  If more monitoring and boundaries are set, this can possibly prevent potential dangers to young people worldwide.