Chapter 8

In the beginning of this chapter I was able to connect immediately during the portion that discussed electronic communication between teachers and students. After being a student for majority of my life and now diving into the role of teacher, I am able to see this kind've communication from both angles. 

I didn't start emailing my teachers until I was in college. I appreciated the fact that I could get in contact with them and get a response although it was often asynchronous. Some of my teachers were "cool" enough to let us text or call them if it was something that required a synchronous, or immediate, response. 

The one tool I have found beneficial as both a student and teacher is having access to all my school work online. At St. John's, we use blackboard. This is a website that allows for us to upcoming assignments, grades and gives us links to lessons done previously to help us refresh our memories. At P.S.30, the students, administration, parents and teachers have access to the schools website portal. This allows for teachers to post homework, important due dates and reminders. Parent's and students are able to access this information so that they are no miscommunications on what is expected of them. In my opinion, this is a great idea!

When I first started reading this chapter I had no idea what a "wiki" was. The only familiarity I had with the word was the website "Wikipedia".  After reading, I am came to the conclusion that they are the same thing. A wiki is a website or blog space hat is collaboratively edited and maintained by a group of people. It was after reading this that I realized that all of the websites that start with "Wiki" had this very thing in common. 

Using a Wikitext in your classroom as an educational tool is a way to enhance learning through the use of technology.  You can start a Wikitext for any topic you are choosing to have your students learn about. You can give them access to the text and allow them to post a link to any resource they found relative to the topic. This allows students to share ideas with each other. This also gives the teacher an opportunity to post things that she wants her students to also take a look at it to enhance their learning of a topic. 

Wiki's can be useful in the classroom for many things but you need to be sure to use them properly! Guidelines must be set up for how you want to see their wiki used and constructed. You must also be sure to explain to students that plagiarism is always a NO GO!  Teachers must also be checking students wiki's and giving them feedback and grades so that the student is held accountable for what they are putting into it and on it.