bhstigerscience Wiki

I created a wiki for my science classess to check out what they were all about and learn along with the kids. I called my tech director to get it approved and he was stoked about the whole concept of integrating web 2.o into my classroom. He was so impressed he came and spent a class with us.

I set the limits to the wiki so that only the class could read what was posted, not the public. I can change that later if I choose to. I must say that the students were pretty excited about the whole wiki concept. Not a single one knew what a wiki was and the closest they came to was wikipedia. They were so engaged!!

I created four pages for them to work on. Each page had a link to the fake science web sites that we used in ETEC. I had the students go in and find an interesting fact from each web site and post it on that page of the wiki. They were amazed at the tree octipi! Usually towards the end of class some student finally said "Miss Schubert, is this real?" So, not only did they gain the concept of using a wiki, they also learned a lesson on web site credibility.

I really enjoyed this activity, as did the students. They learned valuable concepts and all we have done this far is practice using the wiki. My next step is to have them use the library databases to do actual research. So many students didn't even know how to access the ebsco and gale databases, so I can imagine what their searching skills are like!

Just a note.

Check out www.shelbert.net to find the link to my science wiki, del.icio.us, and bloglines.