Reviewing a Wiki

For this blog post, we were supposed to review a wiki. I enjoyed this activity because I found a great wiki. Mrs. Ibrahim's second grade wiki contains the topics covered over the whole year as well as a compilation students' writings. I love this idea because it's important to let students practice writing as much as possible, and I've already decided that in my own classroom I want my students keep daily journals. But after seeing this, I may just make it a daily wiki journal. Having the daily journals online can make it more interesting for the students and allows the parents to have easier access to their children's works.

The home page explains what a reader will find in the site in a concise paragraph. This is important for individuals visiting the site for the first time. The home page also contains a picture to add interest, but in my opinion, the picture is too busy and cluttered. It is somewhat distracting.

There are also links to the various pages in the wiki on the home page. The first group of links are organized by student's first names. These will take you to individual student's pages where there is a self-portrait of the student and some information the student has written about himself or herself. From the student's individual pages, visitors can go to the student's personal narrative to read more of the student's writings.

The wiki also contains a navigation bar on the left side of the page. There are links to various subject pages found here. These lead to the various topics the class has covered over the year.

Seeing how wikis can be used in a second grade class has been a great experience.