Wiki Lab

This week, we're learning about Wikis. It's pretty interesting to see how easily a group of people can collaborate and create something new. Admittedly, I was shy about these at first because anyone can easily edit them. While that's part of the greatness of them, I also like to know that when I'm reading about something, I can trust the authority of what I'm reading. It's a mixed bag I suppose and the bottom line is it's the reader's responsibility to cross-reference sources, especially if something doesn't seem to make sense (e.g. if you read that Thomas Edison never died, became a vampire and worked extensively on the invention of Twizzlers, you may want to... nevermind. I'd buy that.).

Nonetheless, I was given of looking at the Wikipedia page for the school where I teach and either adding something new or correcting something that was mistaken. I did both. I noticed that, while our principal was listed, our vice principal wasn't. I added him. I also noticed that the man listed at athletic director is now the principal of our middle school and we have a new athletic director. I updated that information as well. Here's a shot of my handiwork to the right.

I'm also given the task of creating my own Wiki. Admittedly, I'm still learning about Wikis and how to use them to their full potential in my class, but to start off, I decided to use it as a repository for all the links I suggest to students to help them understand what's going on in class. I invite anyone (especially those who are familiar with Julius Caesar or Shakespeare in general to add links to sites they've found useful. You can find that website here.