Wikis - A Valuable Tool

Wikis are a wonderful way to get kids writing on the computer. So often students complete assignments, they are graded, and handed back. A wiki allows their learning to be shared for all. I had the opportunity to use the Village Wiki with my first graders. They were so excited to go home and look up their work online. More than that, they were excited to tell other family and friends about it - even those that live far away.
I liked Mr. Lindsay's wiki. His newsletter was done as a podcast which saves a lot of time and trees. I also liked wikijunior. The concept of collaboratively creating primary level non-fiction books is awesome!!! I could actually use the pages that are under construction on that page as a resource for my class. The dinosaur pages are terrific. I have to be honset, with all that I have learned about blogs and wikis, I find them more vauable and stimualting than my my classroom website.

Video Resource Sites

I explored each of the recommended sites and found them to be very different. NextVista has an interesting concept. I liked the fact that the videos are all 5 minutes or less and that they can be submitted by adults or students. With only 70 videos, it's general use is minimal so far!!! But I have great hopes for this site. I think it could easily support class projects. It would be a great way for students to demonstrate new learning. when a group of students finishes studying any topic, they could create a teaching video and submit it to the site!


The commercial sites had a wide variety of material and topics. I noticed that people can comment on the videos and sometimes the comments can be inappropriate for students so teachers would have to monitor that. I loved Teacher Tube! I enjoyed the perimeter rap. If you haven't watched the "when I grow Up" video - definitely give it a look. It was creative and I think when shared with older students would lead to a neat discussion about the future.

You Tube and Clipblast were a little to commercial for me. The sites felt overwhelming and more for entertainment purposes than educational.

Teachers of older students might find these sites very helpful. I was thinking of how my older son could use the Next Vista site for help when he is stuck on a math problem.

Blogging Thoughts...

Blogging has opened my eyes to a lot of wonderul opportunities that it has to offer. Not only publishing kids work and as a means for communication, but I have also thought of many things my fellow colleagues could do with blogging given my knowledge of the projects they currently engage in. For example, my fifth grader currently does a curent events summary for homework. I think it would be really neat if he had to post his summary and was required to read and comment on other current event summaries done by his classmates.

It was very easy to set up, given the excellent step by step instruction!! I have a sincere desire to post and create links in an effort to entice my peers into checking this out for themselves. I plan on putting a great deal of thought into how I can best utilize this at the kindrgarten level with both students and parents. I may have students dictate one or two sentences about the day - a daily newsletter - that parents could read from home. I also have been having monthly parent meetings focused on curriculum and having a parent blog would help us all continue the great conversations we start in person.

Welcome to Terri's K-1 Blog!

I am new to blogging and have created this blog for an online course I am currently taking.