Week 2 Blogging - Wiki

During the reading this week I realized how important a Wiki can be used in the classroom. I did one previously and thought it might be a good idea to incorporate it but I never had a classroom to use it. Now that I have my own library and teach technology, I can see how beneficial creating and use a wiki can be. As educators we always need to be able to reach students. By creating a wiki I think it is definitely possible. I had viewed several wiki’s and blogs to look at for some ideas. The first wiki that I came across I really liked. It is very basic but really easy to maneuver around and find what you need. At http://mrsroncone.wikispaces.com/Ways+to+use+a+wiki+in+your+classroom Mrs. Roncone’s classroom wiki students can access a lot of information. She has classroom news, grades, language arts, grading scale, and rules. I liked looking through her information because I think parents could easily access it as well. If she kept up with it each week parents and students could know what was going on throughout the school year. I really liked the blog http://tomakeaprairie.wordpress.com/ by Emily Dickenson. She does a tremendous job breaking down some ideas about reading. She discusses Common Core and how it’s “designed by identifying the academic skills students would need to be ready for college and careers and then working back from there.” She also talks about a study where 85% of public school teachers feel they are engaging their students in inappropriate activities. This is something I do not understand but I am definitely going to look further into some of the studies. She makes some great statements on learning and reading throughout the blog. She also talks about a kind of stepping-backwards-to-step-forward approach. From what I could understand she is trying to help students get better prepared with reading and discussing what is occurring in the text. She had some really good ideas and insight so this is a blog I will continue to follow.

 

I was truly inspired while reading this. I don't think parents truly understand how much information their children lose over the summer. I really enjoyed reading this and the seven ideas you have shared. I had just read an article that was written by Valerie Strauss called "How to Prevent Summer Reading Loss" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-to-prevent-summer-reading-loss/2011/06/06/AGxmlgKH_blog.html ) and I was blown away at some of the information. This will definitely be a blog I will want to share with my parents. This is something teachers could print out and share with parents at the end of the year along with some other ideas on how they could work with each student.