Reflection-Final Posting

All in all, I feel that I’ve created a pretty good GAME plan. Although I didn’t completely follow through with it (since I said that I would use it with my students next year) what I was able to accomplish, I feel proud of. After a lot of research on which site was the best, looking at other teachers’ existing wikis, I made my own wiki that I will eventually use with my class. I modified my plan slightly to perhaps test this out with my class this year to simply copy and paste a report that they are going to do in Word into the wiki. I already set up usernames and passwords for my class this year, and put simple instructions on the wiki itself so when/if we do this, my students shouldn’t be TOO confused. Next year when I actually do the birthstone project, I will revamp the site and add my class as users. It might be fun to leave my old class with member status however so they can comment on their predecessors’ work. To a fourth grader, having a fifth grader say “good job!” is fabulous! I’m excited to use wikis in my classroom, although I don’t think I would use them with every report-style assignment. I still think it is valuable to have a hand written first draft and have peers edit in colored pencil to easily see comments/changes. I know that that can be done electronically, I do it all the time with track changes in Word for my colleagues, but as nine and ten year old working out the physical aspect of writing their thoughts down is something they need to master.