Thing 21

Describe a wiki you found that inspires you to create one of your own. Do you have ideas for how your staff might use a wiki? What hurdles might stand in the way of using a wiki? What would it take to remove the hurdles? Is it worth the fight?


I really found many of the wikis inspiring.  The Arbor Hill elementary website was outstanding.  I really liked how it provides an avenue for all the stakeholders to contribute to the website.  I loved how they incorporated Facebook into their webpage as well.  As I looked through it, it was a vehicle of positive interaction between school and the various stakeholders.  So often, the social websites are places where kids get bullied or leave negative responses.  This school has modeled a positive approach to using a social network to bring their community together.  I was very impressed.


We have used wikis in our district to have collaborative conversations across grade levels and buildings.  Most of the time, they were developed by our Media Specialist while working on a special project.  It is fair to say the concept/tool has not caught as of yet.  Like anything else, the limited exposure has been a killer.  I think wikis can/will become a part of everyday life very soon.  They are practical, user friendly and in short, the way to go.  I think the hurdles to overcome is leadership.  If I can provide the training and then model how we are going to use them, I can then "require" that some of our everyday school life be accomplished through wikis.  An example would be departmental curriculum maps, guides, course descriptions, assessments, etc. be "warehoused" on a wiki.  I could absolutely take many of the administrative things I do for staff and create an interactive wiki.  The possibilities are endless and the only real hurdles are some PD and and a commitment to working smarter rather than harder.