Wiki, Wiki, Wiki

A wiki can be a great educational tool.  Wiki is short for Wiki Wiki, which is the Hawaiian word for quick.  Will Richardson's chapter in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classroom on Wikis is aptly titled "Wikis: Easy Collaboration for All".  From the previous two sentences, one can see that a Wiki is quick, easy, and collaborative.  If you are unaware of what a Wiki is, please watch the video below.



Uses in Education
Wikis can be used for a variety of things in education.  Teachers can use them for classroom websites.  Students can use them as a way to keep track of their online work.  Students can also use a wiki as a collaboration project.

Example of wiki used as a classroom page: Raymo's Sociology Class

Example of wiki used as a collaborative project: Mayflower Wiki

Wiki Creation Sites
It really doesn't matter what website you go with to create your wiki, each has their own perks and are all relatively the same to use.
Wikispaces
Wetpaint
PBworks
Wikidot
dooWikis

My Thoughts
I often forget about Wikis.  I think it is because of my bias toward Google, and the ability to create sites using Google and the collaborative nature of some of the Google tools.  Wikis are very easy to use and they are easily customizable.  I would like to use them more and will make it a point this semester to use it in my classroom in one way or another.

Almost forgot to place a link to the worlds most famous wiki...Wikipedia.

Doodle

I've known about and used Doodle for a couple of years now.  Doodle is a website that helps groups of people schedule meetings.  If you are the person that is creating the Doodle, you select the days in which you think the group can meet.  You then send out a link to everyone in your group.  Your group members then select which dates they can attend the meeting.  Everyone will then be able to see which date works best for everyone involved.

Great Math Help

Where does the time go...It's already Wednesday and I haven't posted since Friday!!!  Sorry!

Sometimes I run across things that I wish existed when I was in school.  This is one of those sites!  I was never (am still not) very good at math.  Math Live is a site that offers very easy to understand math help.  They do it with visuals and audio, which is what many kids need to understand some of the concepts.  I hope this site is still around when my daughter goes through school!

Samsung Galaxy Tablet Leaked

Here is a link to an interesting story from Mashable.

HP also has a tablet release as well.

What makes this so exciting is that the iPad version 2 is supposedly in production as we speak.  Can you say PRICE WAR!!!  I have iPad version 1, and love it.

P.S. Sorry for missing a couple days of blogging...been another crazy week!

NBC Learn

NBC Learn is a neat site that offers some cool videos and resources for mostly science.  Many of the videos are from NBC news shows.  If you don't use it as a classroom resource, it might be useful to just share the site with students.

Sketchfu

When I first saw Sketchfu, I thought it wasn't anything great.  Then I browsed the gallery and quickly figured out what makes this special.  You can watch the drawing take place before your eyes in fast forward.  This would be a cool project for any art class.  I plan to show my students this tomorrow and maybe offer some extra credit if someone wants to create something.  Even if you don't plan to use this, check out the gallery.

Google Art Project

I have to admit that I am a Google nut, and have been ever impressed by the things they have come out with in the last couple of years.  I came across Google Art Project while reading one of the Google blogs the other day, and I must say, WOW!  I was totally impressed at what you can do with this.  You can now navigate through some of the most famous art museums in the world.  You navigate your way through much like you would with Google street view.  I shared this with our Spanish teacher as she takes students on a trip through some of these art museums, and she was impressed.  It is really fun to show on an interactive board.  Check out Google's video showing Art Project.