Thing 10-Wiki's

I have some experience using wiki's in my school. When teachers were laid off at the end of last year I held a workshop and taught them how to make a website with a wiki. We loaded their past years work onto the wiki, some photos, etc. It was a tech tool to help them show their tech skills and hopefully find another job.

I use wiki's myself with teachers still in the building. I have 2 teachers that are podcasting and I've linked their audio files to a class wiki. Once the wiki is built, the students are able to listen to the audio files and share them with family members at home. The teachers also use them as an anticipatory set for the next 10 week core class. They create quite a bit of excitement in the new students. http://englishcore.wikispaces.com/ Check out this wiki to see how it works. We haven't opened these wiki's up for collaboration and the other wiki we use is password protected. Teachers are nervous about what is on the internet connected to their name and this was a good way to help them take that first step.

I was on a committee last month formulating a plagiarism policy for the school and tried to use a collaborative wiki with the group to make it easier for everyone to share their ideas but the rest of the group refused. They felt it was to much trouble to learn the technology. If they only understood, it's not hard....it's just new.