Wiki Evaluation

I found a wiki made by a 3rd grade teacher for her class, titled "Melville Grade 3 Mpolselli." The point of this wiki is to have a central meeting place throughout the year for the students and parents. Parents are able to keep up with what is happening in the classroom. The teacher, Mrs. Polselli posts each unit of study with the curriculum and includes resources and websites so parents can learn more. For example, the students will be reading "The Chalk Box Kid" by Clyde Robert Bulla and Mrs. Polselli added a link that has activities related to this book that parents and students can do at home. This way, the parents are involved and know what is going on.

Something I thought was interesting was that this teacher rewards students with a homework pass if they visit any WebQuest or link through her website and play the games or activities provided there. They can either print out the activity and turn it in or have parents write a note or email her saying the student did this. This is a great incentive for students to become familiar with using online tools!

One of the projects assigned is for the students to make their own book using 3 resources. The librarian helps the students make the pages of their books on the computer. Mrs. Polselli included these on the wiki and I think this is a good way to showcase student work.

On the left side of the wiki she has an assignments tab where students can go to see what is due for the week. She also puts up study guides for tests. My favorite part of the wiki is the student spotlight tab where each student picks their favorite website for a subject and posts it here. One student, Adam, included a math websites titled "Math Magicians." This gives students the freedom to search the web for websites they enjoy and to share it with their classmates. This is a great idea and I would like to use this in my classroom one day.

I really enjoyed searching for other wikis on the internet. This helped me see how teachers use them in the classroom and I was able to find ideas I can use in my classroom one day.