Wiki's and ePortfolio's. Certainly learning lots today. I had heard of wiki's before (wikipedia, wikileaks etc) but had never really understood what 'wiki' meant or what one was. Apparently the word wiki comes from a Hawaiian word, Wiki-Wiki, which means fast, or something like that. More importantly a wiki is website that can be easily updated by average folks like me. You don't need to be a brainiac who can write HTML code. That's exciting stuff. The educational opportunities that creating and using wiki's provide are immense. Collaborative student projects, collaboration with other educators, even collaboration with different schools in different countries! Anyone can update content, anyone can share ideas. It could be something that I explore further when I have a class of my own.
Onto the second topic, ePortfolios. When we were asked to make one I thought it would be really hard. In actual fact, Mahara was pretty easy to use. Nothing hugely exciting in it yet but as this subject progresses it will be interesting to see what shape it takes. Not sure yet if I would use ePortfolio's or not unless I was made to but as I learn more we will see.
Bye for now.
Interesting point about the origion of the word wiki, Andrea. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI also agree that one of the real benefits of using blogs and wikis for teachers is the collaboration of ideas. It is a risk once I'm out teaching that I may get stuck in the rut of always using theh same ideas, doing the same things, sort of trapped in my classroom. Sharing ideas with other teachers, having a more global perspective on education, and keeping up to date with the latest pedagogies will keep me from becoming a 'stale' teacher, and this can all happend through blogs and wikis!