What+are+some+classroom+practices?

**Sharon __The "Wiki Way"__**

[|Free wikispaces] for educators. [|Free information] about pbwiki (ad-free for educators).

__**Some Purposes for Wikis**__


 * Lesson Summaries -** Student-produced - I have students work in groups and assign scribes. They have to self-organize and peer-edit. Example - https://lcc9emerchant.wikispaces.com/ - [|Rubric] for assessment


 * Collaboration of Notes -** Student-produced - Each student is expected to contribute some practice questions for upcoming tests and exams**.** Example - https://gr7vocab.wikispaces.com/Unit+8


 * Collection of information - i.e. wikipedia-like -** Student-produced **-** synthesis and summary of information to employ higher level critical thinking skills; encourages information literacy as students must discern the validity of sources and present facts. See the Glengarrypedia link below.

Some of my students' best writing has been done on blogs and wikis this year. I have found that writing in online environment for a large audience has made my students particularly attentive to detail and to focus on effective writing.

__**Several projects come to mind that were particularly successful:**__

The Glass Castle Project - in-class assignment involving the creation of audio interviews with dramatized content based on this memoir.[| Rubric] for assessment

Glengarrypedia - in-class assignment from the novel, Tourist's Guide to Glengarry, a Canadian novel, involving the synthesizing of research of cultural and historical information presented on a wiki (like wikipedia). [|Rubric] for assessment

Jerusalem and Montreal wikis - collaborative literature project between LCC and Neveh Channah School students in Etzion Bloc, Israel. The results from this project are being published in a teacher education journal in Israel and the project is being used as an exemplary model for the Horizon Projects Wiki Project. The students exchanged reflections on pieces of their countries' literature and provided feedback for research projects. The interaction was fantastic! Some samples of discussion:[| here], [|here], [|here] and [|here]. The [|rubric] being used to assess the students' peer feedback is also being used as a model. **This project won a silver award from the International Society for Technology in Education - Special Interest Group Telelearning in May 2007!**

GVC-06 - collaborative web design project between three schools located in Arizona, Illinois, and Montréal. The wiki was used as a place students could provided feedback and peer-editing on creative writing stories. Students had to work hard on their negotiation skills as they worked on the storyline and graphics for this project. [|Here] is an example of such negotiation. The [|resulting website] is awesome! **This project won the silver award in 2006-07!**

[|Travel Blog] - Students who were on exchange to Australia kept us up to date with their escapades. Over 1800 visits in 6 weeks!

**Scott** A few links to my student's work
 * [|http://wiki.selwyn.ca/students]Grade 8 projects on Norman Bethune
 * http://wiki.selwyn.ca/students/comm9 Grade 9 Communications projects
 * [|http://wiki.selwyn.ca/wiki/gr8a/]Grade 8 Nutripedia