Learning Labyrinth

Thing 8 – Set up your own page on the K12 Learning 2.0 participant wiki.

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Visit my K12L2 Sandbox wiki page!

Thing 7 – What is a wiki? Explore Wikipedia and other “public” Wikis; Explore educational uses for Wikis.

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Although I was familiar with the term and idea of a “wiki” prior to the start of the school year, I had never really explored nor interacted with wikis. Now, I feel immersed in a cloud of wiki, wiki, wackiness.

Currently I am working with the teachers in the sixth grade Math & Science Academy to develop two large wiki projects. Both projects are designed to be a part of a technology-infused culminating unit in correlation with the sixth grade TabletPC Program. Our sixth graders take math and science as single gender classes. Both wiki projects will be launched in Spring 2008.

The first wiki project, TrinityMD, will be a series of informative podcasts covering a wide range of diseases and disorders that affect the human body. Mrs. Stafford, the sixth grade science teacher at Trinity School, developed the project idea for TrinityMD. The sixth grade students work in pairs to research a particular disease or disorder in order to develop an informative podcast episode. The students begin by researching and conducting interviews with experts or individuals affected by the disease/disorder. Then, the students work together to develop and write their podcast script. After revising and editing, they record their episode using their tablet pc. Finally, each pair of students will develop a wiki page for their TrinityMD podcast episode that contains their podcast mp3 file, the accompanying podcast script, and a list of resources used throughout their project creation.

The second wiki project, the Atlanta Math Trail, will be a yearly project created and maintained by Mrs. Story & Mrs. Heise’s sixth grade math classes. The Atlanta Math Trail is modeled after the National Math Trail project. At Trinity, students work together in groups of three or four to research and visit various Atlanta locations in order to develop a series of geometric math problems relating to well-known, historical sites. Then, each group develops a wiki page about their designated Atlanta location. Each wiki page contains the history of the historic location, the original geometric math problems and solutions, as well as a bibliography of resources used throughout the creation of the project.

I have also set-up a private (personal) wiki as a means of collaboration and communication between my sister Becky and her Bridesmaids to help coordinate wedding details. With conflicting schedules and personal obligations, I felt that using a wiki would be a great way to eliminate the frustration of playing the games of email and phone tag. So far, Rebecca’s Bridesmaids, has proved to be a great tool!