Thoughts on Wikis in the Classroom- Reflection for Chapter 4

I am the typical teacher that Richardson describes a little wary of the idea that anyone could post anything on a website linked with my classroom. My first of teaching has been all about learning to let go of things I can’t control so that I am not as uptight in the classroom. I for one couldn’t sleep at night knowing that anyone (particularly certain questionable characters in my own class) could put anything on the website- I would probably have to for my own sanity use a that is password protected particularly one like Jotspot where I could track which student posted what.
In my experience with middle schooler’s is that the statement “everyone together is smarter than anyone alone” (pg 61) goes against the hormones that create pack mentality…the more middle schoolers in one room the less intelligent they become.

As I do tend to worry and be a bit controlling, as I read this imagined someone wrecking or vandalizing a Wiki that a class had made. The author mention that wikis can teach students about “collaboration…publishing….and writing as well” (pg. 68) but I also realized despite the initial frustration that web vandalism would create it could be a great tool for teaching “web morals.” I think if student had to spend a lot of time reworking a site that had been destroyed it might prevent them from pulling this prank later on. So perhaps as he described, going with as few restrictions as possible might be an opportunity for students to learn by natural consequences.

Finally, I thought Richardson's section "Wiki Tools for Schools" was great in that it gave some examples of site on which could create your own wiki and direction. However, I thought the format of the directions was hard to follow...I like directions in numbered lists and bullets not paragraph form!