Testing Out the Wiki

Now that my wiki is all set up I decided to put it out there for my students to use.  First I wrote a letter to the parents explaining the purposes of the wiki and how our class would use it to collaborate.  I also made it clear that this site would be secure and only members that were invited would have access.  The letter gave the wiki address, the child's login information and an explanation of how to edit the page.    The letter was approved by my vice principal and was sent home.

The letter also outline the first optional assignment for students to sign up at home for their president report ( I posted about this earlier).  After checking the next morning I was surprised to see that five students signed up that night!  I was excited to see the students diving in right away.

Today I also took my students to the computer lab to have them practice logging into the wiki and teach them how to edit a page.  That process alone is quite time consuming for second graders.  But I am happy to report after twenty minutes each student had successfully logged in and written on our test page.

Now I am hoping to make a page for each child and have them complete assignments on their pages.  Parents will be able to log onto the wiki and view the work and students will eventually be able to edit each others pages to help them with peer reviewing.