As I work through this course, I am feeling more confident that setting up a wiki for my classes would work quite well. I will follow the advice from this week's readings and practice setting one up on my own, adding items myself, and then gradually having students add to it. I also learned this week that I have the ability to set up usernames and passwords and that students may change their passwords when they are logged in. I like the idea that wikis allow all students to participate and that it helps build confidence in communicating thoughts and ideas. I also read, do not remember where right now, that the teacher noticed a substantial increase in the confidence levels of students sharing ideas and participating in class discussions more after utilizing wikis. The ability to upload videos, slides, and pictures on the wiki will be beneficial. Of the wikis I looked through this week, the most appealing ones were those with these tools. I think students will be more motivated to log on to see what is new if they know cool videos and pictures may be updated. I think the following link is a great resource about wikis and other cool science ed info.
http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/middle-school-math-science/2008/08/26/teacher-tools-that-integrate-technology-wikis/
I would like to have my students reflect through blogging as well. However, I would like to keep the blogging and wiki on one site so I do not get loaded down trying to keep up with it all. I would like students to post comments on particular topics, ideas or questions on assignments, and questions about concepts we do not cover with great detail in class. I would also like them to read through blogs from professional science sites, like NASA, to keep up with current news events in science.
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