The Wiki Project - During and After

Check out this link for my article reviews:
PBWorks.com

Check out this link for the group's newest Wikipedia.org entry:
The Benefits of Web 2.0 in Education

Well, when it is all said and done I must say that I am pretty impressed with Wikipedia.  Having spent the last few years telling students not to trust Wikipedia because you never know who is posting stuff, I finally have some insight into the inner-workings of this mysterious site.  They promptly took down my erroneous information from before and have, thus far, left my group's very informational contribution in place.  While it is true that as researchers, we must always be careful of our sources, Wikipedia may have just climbed a little higher on my list.  At the very least, I know I will feel better about allowing my students to use this site.

There is certainly plenty of information on Wikipedia for students to use.  As with all other educational technology tools, it has become more important for teachers to show students how to sift through all of the information available rather than just find the information.   We continue to see the role of the teacher change in our modern classrooms.  Instead of simply delivering knowledge to students, teachers become more of a check-stop for students as they find their own information.  This does not lessen our responsibility in the classroom, but merely change our focus.

Wikiality and The Ease of Becoming an Expert

Who knew becoming an expert was so easy?  While Wikipedia.org certainly has many virtues, my latest experiment goes to prove that people must be wary of what they trust on the informational site.  According to my latest update, the character of Shrek was loosely based on a cartoon character from my childhood...Bullwinkle.  Ignore the fact that one is a moose and the other is an ogre.  Ignore the fact that one is Scottish and the other American.  Ignore the fact that one can think for himself and the other has trouble with thinking.  Ignore all of these because I am an expert and Wikipedia told you so.

While a shared collective knowledge like Wikipedia is important for those of us in the education field, it is always important that we remember to check our sources.  It is especially important to pass this knowledge onto our students.  The job of the 21st century educator has become twofold; not only do we need to introduce our students to prospect of technology and all it has to offer, but we must also show our students to sift through the "knowledge" that is out there.

The bottom line is that if Wikipedia has taught me anything this week, it is that students can no longer simply accept knowledge.  Instead they must question it and discover it for themselves.

Prezi Software

Introduction on Prezi

Over the course of the last week, I have been trying my hand at new software that I could use in my own classroom.  Prezi.com offers an exciting presentation format that I thought had great potential.  During the week as I worked on my brief introductory Prezi above, I came to decide that while the software does have great potential, it is a little difficult to use.  Trying to get images and words to display without cutting each other off is hard.  If the software had a little more flexibility so the user could choose how and where their text is displayed upon "zoom-in", it would make this presentation package much more powerful.    Another downside to the program is that you are limited to themes which affect every part of the presentation.  I found it very difficult to change specific title fonts or font colors.

Even with all of that said, Prezi.com does change the way we can think about presentations and it gives their users a chance to play around with new ideas.  I would highly recommend taking a look at it, but I don't know if it is feasible to assume you could transfer all of your old PowerPoints to this format.