Wiki Wiki!!

I love wikis! In "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms," Richardson discusses how wikis allow students to become more skilled collaborators, editors, publishers and communicators. Wikis afford students the opportunity to take the lead and manage the wiki. Teachers should be there to coach and ensure that all material is appropriate. Since wikis are on the internet, I have marked the wiki as private and work is completed in class.
My Spanish 2 students and I are using a wiki to put a little pizazz into our "giving directions and commands" unit. I love it! This is the first time I have used wikis in our ITS class and think it's a great way to keep putting the puzzle of content together! Wikis are very easy to manage and use. In groups, students are using the wiki pages to give advice to Spanish speaking tourists for traveling by specific means of transportation (i.e. plane, train, bus, etc.). Each group chose a font color and writes on the wiki pages in that color only. I think it's easiest to describe it as a "round robin wiki" to the students. They add two pieces of advice and one hyperlink to a helpful Spanish website on each page. Then, they return to the first mode of transportation for which they gave advice and will edit the work of their peers and set the layout for that page. When the "mother group" for that page adds graphics then, I know they have completed their page. My Spanish 3 students create PowerPoint presentations about Spanish speaking countries and will be able to connect their presentations to the transportation advice wiki. My students are expanding their knowledge and interest as they explore the wikis and PowerPoints. The wiki is making this a rich experience.