I found two really great wiki's to compare. Wiki 1 is Mrs. Hopkin's 2nd grade wiki and Wiki 2 is Mr. Mendell's 4th grade wiki. I was mainly looking at the attractiveness and organization of the wiki, the hyperlinks, and if the wiki provided for good collaboration among students. Below are my thoughts in each area.
Attractiveness/Organization:
Wiki 1 has a great look and is very organized. Mrs. Hopkins has all of her pages organized under different sub-headings to allow users to find things quickly. And all the fonts and colors are visually appealing.
Wiki 2 has so many amazing resources, for all subjects, added to it but I found it to be a little unorganized and harder to navigate. However, the wiki was still very engaging and left me wanting to explore it to find all the great resources!
Hyperlinks:
Both Wiki 1 and Wiki 2 had many great links to Word documents and other websites. And they were all working! I enjoyed looking through all the links to get ideas for my classroom website.
Collaboration:
Wiki 1 had a page assigned to each student in the class where they could add projects and other assignments but I didn't find any place where students were commenting on other students pages. If students were able to comment and ask questions on each others pages, that would encourage more collaboration.
Wiki 2 had a place for students to create their own wiki, not just one page on the classroom wiki. The teacher had template pages and specific rules for students to follow when creating their wiki. There was also a chat section but I was not able to look at it without signing in to class. I think this wiki had great collaboration potential. He also has a class blog that is linked to the wiki that is really cool!
I really liked both wiki's. I think they would be very effective in the classroom. Wiki 1 was definitely set up for younger students and I think it was very age appropriate. I think wiki 2 was a great example for me to look at since I teach fourth grade and I got many great ideas from looking through it. I not only loved Mr. Mendell's wiki but his blog was great as well.
I love how Mrs. Hopkins' wiki had a specific link for each student in the class where they could showcase what they've done! I think that's great for parents to see what their child has been working on. I also liked how Mr. Mendell had a video of himself explaining things to the parents. Both great wikis!
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