It seems like Vicki Davis is a big fan of the wiki, and although I am a little skeptical that the wiki will become a panacea for all of my teaching woes, I definitely see an educational purpose for a wiki. A wiki appears to be part website and part blog, with almost infinite editing possibilities. I looked at almost all of the sample wikis, but I was particularly interested in the Paideia teachers' wikis. I liked that the different teachers demonstrated a really wide range of uses. For example, Carl's World Issues wiki was pretty straightforward. I think the whole class came together to create the article. Although there was a collaborative element, I am not sure the assignment required much higher order thinking. After all, much of the information was probably cut and pasted from the web. Sure, this requires some discretion, but I doubt that the students were challenged much. Dave's Computer Science Wiki seemed like a class webpage, but he definitely utilized many of the strengths of a wiki. The students had their own pages, and it certainly seemed like the wiki was serving its purpose.
I worked ahead on this assignment, and I know that I want to do something more than a basic website with my classes. I would love to have a blogging component to my World Religions class, and perhaps a wiki is the way to go. More will certainly follow on this thread...
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