Blogs and Wikis in Education

1. There are many interesting and innovative ways blogs and/ or wikis are being used in K-12 classrooms. For example a blog or wiki can be used to help a teacher or staff member communicate between other teachers within a school, a district, or maybe even over seas. Also with a wiki or blog, you can post different types of lesson plans for an activity or even a whole unit for a classroom, it can allow you to see a step by step procedure on how to carry out an activity. A blog or wiki could also link you to additional helpful websites that a teacher may often visit and find useful. For the higher grades that are using computers more, the blogs and wiki's can become useful for the students themselves to have a class website to be able to see the syllabus and upcoming assignments.

2. You could use a RSS readers/aggregators in a classroom setting by using them for exactly what they do, let you know when there is an update of a website and translate it into its simplest form for your computer to read. This can be helpful for students when they are checking websites for information for a project, or maybe news articles. It allows them to spend less time searching for the latest news and worrying about if you correctly understands what is being said. It allows more time for the important activities and projects that you are doing in the classroom.

3. There are pro's and con's of using blogs and wikis in the education field. An example of a pro of using blogs and wikis in the education field is it allows teachers and staff to be able to get ideas of alternative ways of approaching teaching a lesson, as well as providing a page to get new lesson plans. A second pro of having a blog or wiki for a classroom is it allows the students when they are at home or elsewhere besides the class, to be able to view a calendar of events coming up, due dates, and things that are required of them, it can act as a friends reminder. A con's of having a blog and wiki in the education field is you need to be extremely careful how you are presenting yourself as an educator to the younger crowd, are you pictures and information representing you in a positive role model position? You always need to make sure you are representing yourself and your school in a respectful way. A second con would be you need to remember that you are working on a computer and it is easy to make a mistake when typing instructions or even entering test results, be sure to double even triple check your work and what you are entering on to the internet for everyone to see and respond to.