Wiki Week

The wiki I created is for the robotics team that I coach at school the Robowranglers. The reason I decided a wiki would be perfect for our team is because we have a lot of info, dates, and competitions to keep track of. I send out emails to the team, yet all the time I get emails or questions about information that we’ve talked about months ago and it takes me so much time to dig up old emails. I thought this wiki would be a great idea, because not only can I update information, but my students and parents can update information as well. Typically I take care of all travel arrangements, parents organize fundraisers, and students run the meetings. By using a wiki be can all update information and have it in the same place. This is better then using our website because it would look cluttered with all this information. I have started my wiki here: http://greenvillerobotics.pbworks.com and while I have not had time to introduce it to the whole team yet, I plan on doing that in the upcoming weeks.

I can see a lot of advantages in using a wiki for my purpose. With so many people doing so many different things on our team, this is a great central place to locate information no matter what project you are working on. By giving everyone the right to update information , the responsibility does not fall on ton one or two people, which is important when everyone on the team is already so busy.

The disadvantage that I can see to using wikis is that it is hard to control what information is being posted, if 50+ people are able to update a page. Although I don’t think that is would create a lot of problems I can definitely see someone accidently deleting something, or posting pictures that should be posted or something of that nature.

For our students that we consider “digital natives” wiki’s have the potential to keep them engaged in technology for everyday assignments and projects. Instead of just simple email or discussion a wiki provides a simple way to increase the use of technology without a major commitment by the teacher.

After exploring the eLearning Tool Wiki I was very intrigued by Mashups. It is something I have never heard of before and as I began looking at the examples I could see a lot of uses for this technology.  Part of my educational technology philosophy was that technology should be interactive and fun. Mashups looks like they could be both.