Wikispaces

  Today we were working in our groups to complete our Wikispaces. Soloman and Schrum (2007, p.201) explain that "community collaboration is the focus of this tool." Wikispace is an online area where multiple people can work on the same document at the same time from different locations. It is a great way for people to share ideas and manipulate information and pictures to suit their needs.





 My group designed a Wiki based on "People who help us" which is aimed at children in Early Years. We divided 6 characters who help us between the 3 of us and designed an information and activities page for each character. The information and activities we chose are age and stage appropriate to our targeted audience. I really liked how we could all work on the Wikispace at the same time. We all worked well together, communicating with one another throughout the whole process in order for the Wiki to look consistent and effective. The only negative I have about the site is that it was really difficult to maipulate the text and images. Whenever I saved my work and viewed the page, I found that it had changed the layout completely. So for the majority of the time my pages didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. Maybe that's me just being a perfectionist?

  Wikispaces could be used within the classroom through a range of collaborative lessons. An example of this would be when small groups of children are working on individual areas of a class topic and have to carry out their own research. They could create a Wikispace, record their research on it and then add images and activities. Once their Wikispace is completed they could share it with the rest of their peers. This will allow them to be responsible for their own learning and they will also be able to learn from their peers Wikispaces.

Reference

Soloman, G. and Schrum, L. (2007) Web 2.0 new tools, new schools. USA: iste.