Minutes for January 7, 2009

Cindy:
-more e-books have been purchased
-really great elementary books on Natural Disasters and Canadian Provinces
-Vendor Fair possibly March/April
-Afterschool meeting on Smartboards has been scheduled the same day as our next PLC: Wed. Feb. 18th from 3:30-4:30.

Ann:
-Grade 4-8 Book Launch
-Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed
-invited to attend a 50 minute book launch time on January 28th at G.A. Brown
-Time slots available: 10:40-11:30, 1:25-2:15, 2:15-3:05

Katina and WIKIS:
-most important buttons: Edit and Save
-these are collaborative, fast webpages
-Blogs are best used for short bursts of writing, conversation, and reflection (all grade levels), whereas wikis should be used for project work and the gathering of resources (junior - intermediate)
Some examples of wikis shared:
http://learningmaineresources.wikispaces.com/
http://sfxschool.pbwiki.com/
http://librarylearning.pbwiki.com/
http://kidpedia.info/
http://fourstage.pbwiki.com/
http://libsuccess.org/
http://silver09nf.pbwiki.com/

How can you use wiki's in your program? What are some of the challenges that you encountered when learning about this? What are some of the benefits that you can see in this?

Chapter 4 WIKIS

• Wiki is short form of the Hawaiian wiki-wiki which means "quick" (p. 55)
• First wiki was created by Ward Cunningham in 1995 (p. 55)
• A wiki is a website where anyone can edit anything anytime they want (p. 55)

The reliability of a wiki has been questioned since everyone can contribute and edit. The understanding is that you have to have faith in the collaborative efforts of the group to keep it safe and reliable. What are your thoughts on this?

The idea of working together, collaboration and negotiation skills are enforced when using a wiki. It is the idea that "everyone together is smarter than anyone alone" (p. 57). How can wikis be used in our library program?

Wikis to read:

Global warming: http://www.tinyurl.com/33885n

Simple English Wikipedia: simple.wikipedia.org

Pedagogical Potentials for Wikis: http://tinyurl.com/2zu6fb

South Africa High School Curriculum: http://tinyurl.com/nvu9v

Wikijunior: http://tinyurl.com/ma7hw

Welker's Wikinomics site: http://tinyurl.com/6ruy3y

Shelley Paul's book study on a wiki: http://tinyurl.com/36sy57

PlanetMath: http://tinyurl.com/9orxf

Please add more wikis to our list as you discover

"Wikis teach students much about how to work with others, how to create community, and how to operate in a world where the creation of knowledge and information is more and more becoming a group effort." (p. 69) This fits in nicely with our Character Education Trait in January: TEAMWORK