Thing #15

The Texas School Library wiki is pretty handy.  Keeping in step with our tech class I clicked on their 30-in-30 link which showcases 30 websites of cheap technology tools.  Some of them were things we've seen before such as the google suit and flickr, but others were new and intriguing like Animoto: a video presentation application.

I really enjoyed the Wiki In Plain English video. We've seen a couple of the Commoncraft videos and I think they do a great job of explaining technology is useful ways.  The end of the About.com article describing wikis made the best analogies I've seen for wikis though.  It compared wikis to a resource book that instead of a table of contents has links to navigate - which are much more efficient. And instead of a singular or limited group of authors, is open to the public.  The comparison of wiki authors to a group of people playing trivial pursuit put into perspective for me the benefit of allowing multiple authors to edit a wiki page.  People are able to contribute what they know best.  Approaching a wiki with this in mind makes them very appealing for schools.

Students collaborating on a research project would benefit from a wiki page because it serves a hub for organizing all their thoughts.  The ability to link to different pages within the wiki would allow the wiki to also become the final product.

I can envision students in upper grades creating a wiki with multiple pages to:
1) brainstorm ideas for a research topic
2) collect information & link to the resources
3) begin a rough draft
4) revise and embellish with presentation features

Teachers can easily monitor wiki pages through RSS feeds to ensure that students are making progress on their projects and not procrastinating until the night before a due date.  ;)

I believe something is awry with either the APSU23ThingsSandbox or my web browsers.  I have created and account for the wiki and tried using both Firefox and Safari to edit the page.  When I click the edit button though all I get is a popup next to it that is a blank little bubble...Any ideas or suggestions for what I am doing wrong?