What are Wikis?

I had no idea what Wikis were, let alone how they could be used educationally, until I read the article "What are Wikis (and How to Use One for Your Projects)." Pretty obvious title for the article, but it did help me a lot with figuring out what they were.

The article began by giving a definition of what a wiki is and then went on to further explain it, for those who didn't understand the definition completely, and explained how it can be used for big class projects and projects done between a group of people. They used the very popular website, Wikipedia, as a good example of what a wiki is. After seeing this I realized I actually did know what a wiki was since I am very familiar with Wikipedia, having used it to look up many things while I was in high school.

They then explained that Wikipedia was only one way to use a wiki and then explained how else a wiki can be used. It was a very interesting article and it even gave a few links to websites that can help you choose a wiki based on what you want to use it for and whatnot. I was left with a few questions after reading this though like; Can you edit any website using a wiki? If not, shouldn't they start allowing that? Also, can't wikis be overused and abused by people and turn websites that used to be useful into junk sites that don't help a bit? How can you stop this from happening? I suppose that people who own these websites have control over what is edited on their pages, as wikipedia does. The idea of a wiki also kind of seems like hacking to me, if you can get in to a website and edit information, can't you see other information that may be personal?

Blogging

I read an article called "Understanding Blogs" and it was very helpful for anyone who had no idea what a blog was before they read the article and it even gave facts that people who may know a lot about blogs would not know. I knew a bit about blogs before this article since I used to blog every once in a while, but I was never a serious blogger. The article stated facts such as when blogs were popularized, around when they were created, and what they were considered to be when they were first created.

The article went on to talk about how blogs can benefit businesses, advantages of blogs, and how and where to create blogs (they meantioned blogger.com as a good website to create a blog actually).

I think that this was a very good informational article about blogs but I believe it should have talked more about how people use it just for every day personal use, not just businesses. I also believe that when they said that the future of blogging is business blogging, that isn't completely true.

What I think is the future of blogging, and it has been done before, is blogging for charities. There is a weekend every year that people will choose a charity and blog to earn money for that charity as long as they blog every hour or so and they keep everything active. I believe that they should have this more than just one weekend a year and that everyone should be involved. Everyone can choose a charity, create their blog or use an existing one, and for every post they make on that blog, they would earn money for their charity. Possibly, if it got popular, people could earn money for the charities based on how many comments they get or how many views their blog gets. People can already earn money for themselves just by having a blog open, why not earn money for charities just by writing about nothing in particular in a blog? I think that would be the future for blogging, something everyone should consider.

Virtual Field Trips

This week I searched the Internet looking for articles on virtual field trips. I was curious not only because it will be the final project but because it is something that can be fun and easy for a teacher to take students anywhere in the world or even beyond and not have to pay for buses or anything else, they would just need a computer for every student and, with how many classrooms are today, that seems like it wouldn't take much effort at all. After searching for a few hours, I finally found an article that I enjoyed about virtual field trips! The article is titled "Rural Washington Students Connect with the World" and it showed how virtual field trips can connect people and possibly help teachers give a more structured lesson.

The article was not only about virtual field trips but also about how technology can now connect students across the world and help them to help each other through hard times they may be going through. Not only that but they have also compared life styles and technology with students around the world. There was a project that a class in Washington and a class in Russia did where they drew a picture and wrote about a family theme. They finished and sent their finished works to each other first through the mail, then through email. A Washington student saw a picture from one of the Russian students and realized it was almost exactly the same as his picture! How amazing is that? Two students across the world from each other drew the same family picture without knowing that they were doing it. Through this we can see how alike people actually can be even when they live across the world from each other, what else could we be able to see through virtual trips and other technology uses in the classroom? This absolutely fascinated me; the concepts and the outcomes.

The article also said that students enjoyed seeing the likenesses in the drawings and liked seeing the differences even more. This must be so wonderful for the students to be involved in. The students also discussed the drawings, what they liked and didn't like, and asked questions about the drawings. The program that they were using says that they are now ready for the next step in this whole technological connection; video conferences. It will be exciting to find out what more they can learn about other countries and people in other countries through this new step!

I think that video conferences will be a great continuation in this technological expansion and I think that more teachers should become involved in this program and continue to evolve these technological advances.