Rethinking Education: Chapter 7

     This chapter really made me think about the future society and education. It is hard to imagine what the future will hold for us and what new technologies will come about in the next 10, 20, or even 30 years. I think that technology and society will change in the future, and I think that it is important that we, in the field of education, also adapt and change with society and technology. This chapter talked a great deal about the digital divide, and I do worry about the digital divide that will be created as society and technology continue to progress. I think that with advancing technology, there will be a difference in the availability and ease of access of such technology for all people; however, I can also see the vast opportunities and resources that advancing technology could create.
    
     On a more positive note, I believe that education will be much more engaging and personalized in the future, with more technology. Learning will be more customized to meet the individuals needs, interests, or abilities, which I believe can be a very powerful and motivating thing. I also like the idea of accessing knowledge at anytime and anywhere. I think that, for those who have computers and the internet readily available, technology can only mean more useful and to the point learning. Along with this idea, I think that it is a real shame that technology is not readily available for all people. What will happen to our society as technology progresses and the digital divide widens? I think that this is a rather scary concept to consider.
    
     As a future educator, I hope to provide my students ample time to use technology and access technology. I will need to consider the fact that some or even perhaps most of my students may not have computers or the internet readily available at home. I will need to provide sufficient computer time for my students, so that if I assign something that requires the use of technology, my students will equally have the necessary equipment and time to complete the assignment. On a similar note, the chapter discussed the competition found in public education today; I hope that as a teacher, I will promote a learning environment that encourages all students to learn. I think that there is no way to completely avoid competition, but I feel that if I make learning more individualized and help my students see the importance of lifelong-learning, they will not desire to be so competitive. I think that competition can be avoided, somewhat, by the way that a teacher sets up homework assignments and classroom rewards; if students are not compared to one another on homework assignments, but rather compared to their own progress, I feel that they will be less competitive.

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: Chapter 9

     This chapter focused on social-networking sites. When I think of Facebook, I think of personal, at home, social-networking; I never really considered Facebook to be a tool that could be used in the classroom. I think that if appropriately set up and maintained, such as the account that Jim Meredith set up for his social studies class, Facebook could be a very valuable asset to a middle or high school classroom. I think that the whole idea of social-networking sites is very good, but I think that it must serve its place outside of school. I think that there may be too many capabilities on Facebook, too many games and activities, that you do not necessarily want students using in school. If Facebook were to be used in school, I think that you would have to do a lot of set-up work, to make sure that your students are protected to the fullest extent possible on the web, and that the site is set to more of a private setting. I think that if Facebook were used for educators or librarians to post and comment on educational topics, it could be a very powerful tool. I agree that Facebook has some powerful capabilities in connecting people, communicating, and sharing ideas, however, in regards to using Facebook in the classroom, I think that we really need to consider what grade level or age would be most appropriate to use Facebook with. The other social-networking site discussed in this chapter was Ning. I actually thought that Ning could possibly be a better, safer, more controlled site to use in the classroom than Facebook. Once again though, I think that Ning is most appropriate for use in the middle or high school grades (especially with an age requirement of 13). In both of these social-networking sites I liked the options of being able to make the site completely private or public. One recommended site that I really liked on Ning was ArtSnacks (tinyurl.com/yvmcjh); this site sounds extremely interesting and creative. I think that ArtSnacks could be really useful to use to get ideas for how to get students in the elementary grades to be creative and make art. (I really liked the idea of incorporating mini lesson videos on a social-networking site!)

     I think that this chapter is good for explaining how you can use Facebook on a more personal level, but I do not really forsee myself using Facebook or Ning in my classroom. I think that a blog or wiki would be more suited to my needs in my classroom. I think that if I taught in the secondary level, Facebook or Ning would be much more appropriate and would get the students excited to learn, but in the elementary schools, I don't think that Facebook would be very appropriate.

Book Chapter Project Reflection

     I led discussion today, along with Jason and Kelsey, on chapter 6 of Rethinking Education. I think that everything went well and according to plan. Personally, I read the chapter over at least 3 times, trying to really understand it and pick out the most important information before meeting with my group. Collectively, our group put quite a bit of effort into our discussion. We met twice before actually presenting, so that we could all brainstorm ideas and then practice the actual discussion. I think that together, we were able to lead an effective discussion that encouraged the class to apply the readings to their lives and futures as educators. As nerve-wrecking as it is to teach/lead discussion for your peers, I actually (and surprisingly) enjoyed doing it. I think that facilitating a discussion really opens your eyes to quirks that you need to work on as a future teacher. One thing that I have been working on is eliminating the use of "you guys" from my vocabulary. Today I found myself, out of habit, saying "you guys," and as soon as it came out of my mouth I thought, "Oh no!" This is something that I will obviously have to continue to work on eliminating. Leading discussion also helps me work on my listening skills; I find myself listening more and more to what the class is actually saying when they give a response and I then try to respond to their given answer beyond a, "good answer" comment. I think that both facilitating a lesson and simply discussing the chapter with my peers impacts my future teaching, because I will be able to see how different people view the same material; in class today and in previous discussions I have seen multiple perspectives that I otherwise would not have seen. I also think that discussing the content with my peers is similar to what I will be doing in team meetings or faculty meetings, as a teacher. I will need to not only feel comfortable with my elementary students, but I will need to feel comfortable with my fellow teachers, staff, and parents.

Day 8-Exit Slip

     Today in class Jason, Kelsey, and I led discussion on chapter 6. We then discussed some SMARTboard tips and tricks. Locking objects is a very important thing to do when creating a SMARTboard lesson; locking objects prevents students from accidentally messing up the page and moving things that are not meant to be moved. If you did not lock objects in place, that were not meant to be moved, some students may get embarrassed or flustered if they accidentally moved the object. I think that as educators we must look out for our students and try to create environments that do not embarrass our students; we need to plan ahead and think about some unwanted things that could occur, we then need to change these unwanted things so that they will not occur. We also discussed how to group objects, infinitely clone objects, and position objects. Something to keep in mind, is that we should never have smaller text than size 36 on a SMARTboard lesson; there should also never be more than 36 words on a page unless the situation appropriately calls for more than 36 words.
 
     We discussed the SWOT analysis for our Cool Tool Screencast. We must analyze our tool and make a listing of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the tool. While we are showing the different aspects of our tool, we need to share the SWOT analysis. (A potential threat could be an issue with student's privacy or if the website would be blocked, perhaps if it is like a game.)

     Lastly, we filled out a mid-semester course evaluation survey.

Day 7-Exit Slip

     Today in class we discussed chapter five of Rethinking Education. We discussed different forms of schooling, such as home schooling, distance learning, and adult education. An interesting thing that came up during the debrief was that we should never ask, "Does anyone want to share?" Instead use, "I need someone to share." We also discussed how we will address the digital divide in our classroom. Should we just not use technology because not all of our students have internet? What will we do as teachers, avoid technology or adjust the time constraints? I think that a good way to approach the digital divide is to offer ample time for students to complete assignments using technology and to also provide computer time (after school, before school, recess, lunch, or during class time). We then looked at Scratch and examined some of its capabilities. We discussed how to make sprites, scripts, and backgrounds. Lastly we discussed homework expectations for the week.

Chapter 5: Rethinking Education Discussion Activity

     I think that home schooling has many benefits. When students are home schooled they are not exposed to as much violence and negative peer pressure, including such things as alcohol and drugs. Home schooled students are also allowed to participate in activities that they might not have been able to participate in, in a regular public school. As a future teacher, I don't think that home schooling will completely impact the number of students in public schools, but I feel that it is definitely an option to consider if you have the time, money, and means to do so.

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: Chapter 8

     I think that podcasts are great tools to be used in the classroom; they have so many uses that can really assist a teacher in teaching the student of today. Podcasts can be used to record a lecture that can then be posted to your classroom blog; lecture recordings are great tools for students who had to miss class for an emergency (or for other non-emergency reasons) or for students who need that extra time to listen to the lecture and take more thorough notes. Podcasts can also be used for assignment purposes, where the students make a recording of something (perhaps a president's biography) and then the class must listen to 3 or 4 of the podcasts and answer questions regarding what they heard. Podcasts could also be handy in recording school music recitals that could be posted or played on a school website or web blog. One important note that I really liked in this chapter was the following, "Before you get your students podcasting, I would urge you to try it out first...You need to experience what you are asking your students to do"(pg. 117). I feel that it is very important that before we go assigning our students to do something involving technology, we should be a least a little bit familiar with the capabilities and processes involved. I like that in this class we are getting so many opportunities to try out different forms of technology, and get to know them, so that if we wanted to use them in our classrooms we would have some familiarity with them.

     Similar to podcasting, video publishing is another tool to consider using in a classroom setting. I don't think that I would use video publishing all too often, but I think that it would be a handy tool to use for a project or two each year (in the late elementary years). I think that students would really enjoy making a video about some concept or historical event that they are learning about; videos will most likely insprie students to get involved and learn about the material so that they will know what they are talking about in the video.

     The last topic discussed in this chapter was screencasts. I think that screencasts are really amazing information/help systems. Screencasts could be used in an educational setting to explain how to do a computer-related assignment or any other computer-related function in the classroom. I think that screencasts are really ingenuitive; they can be very helpful in a classroom to help walk students through a process, step-by-step. I think that screencasts could be very useful at the beginning of the school year to explain how to set up a blog or to explain how to find everything on the school web blog. 

     As a future teacher, I hope to motivate my students and get them excited to learn by integrating the use of technology in my classroom. I think that I would use podcasts and screencasts as devices that would assist my students in understanding assignments. I would try to post lecture-type podcasts to my classroom blog, so that students could listen to them later, if they wanted to. I would also consider having projects for my students to do that would involve either making a podcast or a video of a particular topic we were learning about.

Rethinking Education: Chapter 6

     This chapter discussed the three eras of education. The chapter recaped the apprenticeship and universal-schooling eras and then examined the lifelong-learning era of today. It was interesting to read about how schooling has changed from being primarily taught by the parents at home, to being taught by outside teachers, to being taught anywhere through the use of technology. During the apprenticeship era, parents or relatives taught children the trade or craft of the family; children did not learn mathematics, science, and grammar as they do today, instead they learned the trade that was necessary for them to succeed in society. The next era following apprenticeship was universal schooling. Universal schooling brought about some changes to the things children were taught and the expectations that went along with these subjects. With universal schooling, for the first time, students were made to attend a school outside of their home. The school, similar to apprenticeship, was designed to teach students the skills they would need to succeed in society as an American; however, with universal schooling, the students learned how to be an American by learning traditional American values and subjects. Within universal schooling there were also vast changes. At first schools aimed to teach students everything that they needed to know to succeed as adults in society, but as knowledge began to expand it became impossible for schools to teach all of the knowledge; schools then decided that it was important to teach students to learn how to learn and how to find useful resources. I think that this is a very important concept; teachers cannot teach students everything, rather they must teach students to be resourceful and to seek out their own knowledge of things that they question or are interested in.

     It was interesting to read about the changes that occurred throughout the years, to get to the lifelong-learning that we see today. At first schooling was taught through apprenticeship, by one person to two or three other people. This learning was very individualized and thus very successful. I think that individualization is a large factor in helping students understand content; when students are encouraged to ask questions and seek advice, they will be more likely to do so and will be more likely to learn. Schooling has also changed from being primarily done in the home to being done in a separate building, to now being done anywhere (through the use of computers and the internet). Students can and will find information that they are interested in, on the web, but we as educators must teach our students how to be resourceful on the web and use the sites appropriately. 

     As a future teacher, I hope to encourage my students to learn how to learn. I hope that I will be able to teach my students the skills necessary to be successful adults. Students need to learn more than just the content in mathematics class, they must also learn how to succeed when they do not have a teacher available to help them. I hope to help my students become independent learners, who will try new things, and grow as learners. I hope to inspire my students to be lifelong-learners.

Rethinking Education: Chapter 5

     I liked this quote at the beginning of the chapter, "Once developed, the institutional structures of schooling have remained fairly constant over the last 90 years. But the society surrounding the schools has experienced constant change"(pg. 66). I think that this quote summarizes what we have been reading over the last few weeks, society is changing and the schooling system is not meeting these changes. The schooling system seems to be very rigid and not very open to new technology or change in general. With a schooling system that is so rigid, it is easy to see how many people will and have already shifted to educating their children elsewhere. People can now be educated through home schooling, charter schools, workplace learning, distance education, adult education, learning centers, and educational television. With so many personalized and current ways of learning, it is easy to see why people would want to use these newer educational systems.

     In the last few years, I have seen quite an increase in the number of people choosing to home school right in my hometown. You know that home schooling is a growing method of educational instruction when the number of people choosing to home school increases by 29% in just 4 years. There has also been proof to show that home schooling is successfully improving student learning; home schooling students score significantly higher on standardized tests in every subject. I believe that these high scores can be correlated to the number of hours of individualized, one-to-one schooling that take place in the home. Home schooling is designed to be more of a student-centered approach, where the students are not shown exactly how to solve problems, but rather, asked to use their own reasoning skills to come up with their own conclusions; I think that this has a major impact on a student's learning. If a student attends a public school and is never allowed or encouraged to try things out for themselves, they will not succeed or even be internalizing much of their learning. When students, such as those students who are home schooled, are allowed to try things out and learn from their own experiences, they will internalize and recall information later. I think that the key to home schooling and why it is producing positive outcomes in test scores is that it is student-centered, rather than teacher-centered. As hard as it is for me to say, being a future teacher, I think that there are many benefits to home schooling children, such as individualization and avoiding some peer, alcohol, and drug pressures; I think that the public school system could, if anything, learn from what the home schooling system is doing. I think that if public education could become more student-centered and more "current" the public schools would see higher standardized test scores as well. Although there has been an increase in the number of people choosing to home school their children, I don't think that home schooling would ever completely take over the realm of education; there are far too many people who cannot home school because they must work to provide for their family.

       The other educational systems discussed in this chapter also seemed to be good ways to individualize education. I thought that education in the workplace was a good idea; companies can train their employees to have the knowledge necessary to be contributing fully to the company; I think that simulations provide an excellent, although not completely realistic, opportunity to prepare workers for what they will be facing in their field of work. The distance learning topic was also very interesting to me. I think that this is a great way for students to broaden their knowledge base, especially to things that interest them. I think that distance learning can also benefit smaller schools (like helping smaller schools compete with larger schools), by providing classes that otherwise would be unavailable to the students. The idea of a learning center was new to me. It sounds like a neat way to instruct, using technology, in a small one-room environment. I think that like home schooling, learning centers also stress individualized learning.

     As a future educator, I hope to encourage my students to reach for the stars. Like the home schooling environment, I hope to provide my students with a learning environment that is student-centered and that will foster as much learning as possible. I hope to encourage my students to reason, communicate, and prove their understandings. Most of all, I hope to meet the needs of all of my students so that each student will benefit.   

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: Chapter 7

     When I saw that the chapter this week was all about Flickr, I was intrigued. I did not know how the chapter would suggest integrating Flickr into a classroom. I have heard of Flickr, and I understand the concept of Flickr, but I did not really know how Flickr could be used in a classroom setting. After reading the chapter, I see that Flickr could be useful in uploading pictures from a class field trip, project, or event; these pictures could then be used to show parents (or students) what is going on at school functions or in the classroom. I thought that a good option provided by Flickr was the ability to restrict who views the photos. I think that if the photos were restricted to parents and students, Flickr could be a useful tool to aid in communication with parents. Another useful component of Flickr is the annotation tool. The annotation tool allows you to add text to any part of the photo. This tool could be extremely useful in providing information about the event, project, or experience. I think that the annotation tool also allows people to learn and express their knowledge of the photo/environment.

     Outside of the classroom, I think that Flickr could be extremely useful in providing accurate and fast information, via pictures or videos. As the book discussed, there are oftentimes pictures of natural disasters and historical events that are posted on Flickr faster than on other news outlet sites; this would be extremely helpful in getting many points of view (and many images) of the same event. Flickr would also be useful in showing students many pictures/slideshows of these events to help them visualize the historical situation.

     As a teacher, I feel that Flickr could be a helpful resource to use when preparing a lesson, but I do not think that I would actually have my students make their own Flickr accounts. I think that I would have my own Flickr account and transfer the photos of the classroom projects or field trips to my classroom blog. I do not think that I would use Flickr by itself in my classroom; I would use Flickr to publish photos and then move those photos to other classroom sites. I think that I would, if I had the proper means, use my Flickr account in my classroom to bring up photos for a story writing time, where the students would write a story to go along with the given picture.

Day 6-Exit Slip

     In class today, we discussed chapter 4 of Rethinking Education. I really liked the website that they brought to our attention regarding the National Center for Education Statistics; this website is a good resource to keep handy, because it allows us to look into different statistics regarding a school we may want to teach at in the future. A good point brought up during the debrief was the question of how to encourage participation; how do we get our students to volunteer? Do we force people to volunteer? Do we wait and pray for volunteers? Do we ask good questions that are not vague? Honestly, I do not really know how to answer this question, but I think that the best way to get volunteers is to ask good, interesting questions.
     We also discussed the iRLO assignment. I am definitely a little apprehensive about this assignment; it sounds complicated, but I hope that once I play around with Scratch it won't be quite as intimidating. I think that the idea of Scratch is great, but I am a little unsure of my ability to program things.
     Something to keep in mind regarding the inquiry question assignment is that we should have formal, peer-reviewed articles and informal research (such as blogs or wikis). A good tool to use for this assignment, for finding articles, is the UWSP Library article quicksearch link.
    

Rethinking Education: Chapter 4

     It is interesting to think about the development of schooling in America; Sometimes I forget that schooling as we know it today has not always existed. It is easy to get wrapped up in how the schooling system works today, and forget that it has been changing and evolving over the years to come to be the system that I know today. It was interesting to see the evolutions that took place to "get the ball rolling" and start universal schooling. When I was reading about the history of universal schooling, this quote really stuck out to me, "The invention of the printing press led to widespread development and diffusion of knowledge. As more and more knowledge accumulated, there was a continual increase in what children needed to learn to succeed in the adult world" (pg. 51). So not only has the setting of schooling evolved over the years, but what is being taught in school has also evolved. As the world progresses and expectations are raised, the future generations must evolve to keep up with the progress; If students were taught the same things today as things taught in the early 1900's, would they be able to live and contribute to society? No! The information and the way that students are taught has been evolving over the years and should continue to evolve to fit the knowledge and skills that society expects. Another rather disturbing quote in this chapter was the following, "As the [schooling] system became more rigid, it ceased to evolve as the society around it continued to evolve, and so in recent years, it has become more and more out of sync with the demands of a continually evolving society" (pg. 56). I think that it is a shame that nowadays the educational system seems to be at a standstill, afraid of change. Where would we be today if in the 1900's people were too afraid to try new things especially new technologies? I think that just as the schooling system had to evolve in the late 1800's, to meet the needs of society, so too should it be evolving to meet the needs of society today. (It was interesting to even read about how and why things like compulsory attendance, tests, textbooks, and graded schools were introduced into the schooling system.) The way I like to think about why technology such as SMARTboards and blogs should be integrated into the school system is by thinking about how technology such as blackboards and overhead projectors came into the school system; There was a time when the overhead projector did not exist, but then one day people felt that these tools would aid in the process of educating students. Perhaps eventually people will see the need of newer technologies to assist in learning, hopefully this realization will not take too long so that our students will not have to be the ones to suffer for our skepticism.

     As a teacher, I hope to integrate the use of technology into my classroom. Perhaps I will not have materials, such as computers, readily available, but I will make adjustments so that my students will still be prepared for the ever more digital future. Looking back at how much schooling has already changed since I was in elementary school, I know that I must be ready for change throughout my career as a teacher.

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: Chapter 6

     I think that collaboration is very important both in school and in life; Collaboration helps to connect ideas and expand knowledge. I feel that the social web is a great medium for collaboration to really flurish among people. One such collaboration medium is Twitter. I have heard about Twitter before, but I never used it; I never felt that Twitter was an application that would be of real use for me. Now that I have read more about how Twitter can be used in an educational setting, I have a greater understanding of why people use Twitter, but I still do not think that I would use Twitter. Twitter, to me, sounds like more of a hassle than a blessing. I think that teachers can connect through other mediums that they are already using, whether it be blogs, wikis, or delicious accounts, I do not think that teachers would also need to have a Twitter account (unless of course a teacher finds that they really enjoy using Twitter and it would save them time to connect with others). I am not trying to say that Twitter is a bad application, but I feel that for me personally Twitter would not be an effective tool to use.

     I really like social bookmarking services, such as delicious. Before taking this class I had never heard of a social bookmarking site; Now that I have a Delicious account, I find myself adding tons of bookmarks that I find. It is a great resource because you can access it from any computer anywhere in the world. It is also a great resource because you can find additional information that pertains to what you are interested in, through the use of tags. The other day I added Starfall to my Delicious account (my nieces Donna and Lucia love this site) and after adding this site, it showed that almost 19,000 other people have also bookmarked it; Clearly this must be a very good site, I certainly think so. I then clicked through some other sites that were similar to Starfall, and I ended up finding a ton of other great websites for young children to help them learn to read. By looking at other peoples tags I have also found tons of educational websites that I have saved for future reference. I am finding that my Delicious account is very useful! There was a lot of emphasis in this chapter placed on using Diigo, but I feel that Delicious is more of my style of social bookmarking, because it is so easy to use. I think that for someone who wants to annotate, highlight, and make notes on a site, Diigo would be more for them; For me, I am at a place where I only care to save websites and get links to other relevant websites, so Delicious works.

     As a teacher, I do not think that I would use Twitter in my classroom, however, I would definitely be using a blog in my classroom. I think that I would encourage my students to have delicious accounts, since I find it to be a great personal website. I would consider having my students link their delicious accounts to me somehow so that I could tag items for them, but I do not think that I would go as in depth with delicious as the text described. As I said earlier, I think that delicious is a great tool, but I just do not think that it would be something that I could use in an elementary classroom (perhaps I could use it if I taught 8th grade).

Day 5-Exit Slip

     Today in class Abe and Candice led the discussion on chapter 3 of Rethinking Education. I really liked that they had us connect the material to our personal lives, making learning more personal, by posting a reflection to our blog. We aso discussed the importance of wait time when lecturing; We need to give our students 7 seconds to process the question, after 7 seconds we can re-phrase the question if no one responds. 
     We also discussed the Interactive Whiteboard Lesson assignment. It is important that our lessons are actually interactive and go beyond just a whiteboard lesson. We then discussed how to use SMART Notebook to design our lesson (this was very helpful). It was also really helpful to view the capacity lesson and see some ideas for designing an IWB lesson. The SMART Exchange and SMART Lesson Activity Toolkit websites are also great resources, not only for this assignment, but for life!

Rethinking Education Ch. 3 Discussion Activity

     Someone who motivated me growing up was my parish priest, Father James Benzmiller. He was my role-model and someone who I wanted to grow up to be just like. He was always very kind, trustworthy, respectful, and honest. (I even named my cat after him and learned how to play the organ, because he played the organ.) Father Benzmiller motivated me to always be honest and try my hardest. I hope to also be able to motivate my students to try their hardest and always be honest in their work.

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: Chapter 5

     When I first started reading about the RSS, I thought that I would never use it. An RSS aggregator sounded like something that would only make my life more complicated; I didn't think that I would ever have enough time to actually read through all of my feeds on a daily or even weekly basis. I also thought that an RSS feed would be a lot like my spam folder in my email account, a destination filled with stuff that I don't need to know and don't really care about. As I read into the chapter some more and started to learn more about the capabilities of the RSS, I thought that perhaps I could handle using it. Now that I have finished reading the chapter, I think that an RSS is not such a bad thing, or a complicated thing. I think that after you get through the initial set up, an RSS feed actually saves you time and brings you current, relevant, and interesting information. An RSS aggregator is personalized, not irrelevant! An RSS also does all of the work for you, so why not use it. (I find it to be really cool that an application can find information that fits what you care about, and bring all of that information to one place for you.) 
     I honestly do not think that I would ever have my students use RSS, because I plan on teaching elementary students; however, I feel that high school teachers could definitely have their students learn about and use an RSS aggregator. I think that the RSS would be a great application to teach a history, english, or any high school class to use. For me though, even if I taught older elementary students, such as middle schoolers, I would be teaching mathematics and I do not really see the need for introducing RSS to middle schoolers in a mathematics classroom. Even though I do not think that I will ever introduce my students to the RSS, I will definitely use it myself and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: Chapter 4

     "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing" (Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder). Wikipedia allows people to collaborate with one another to gather and revise information on any topic. I heard of and used wikipedia before, but I never fully understood the capabilities of wikipedia (or of wikis in general). I think that wikis are really great tools, because they allow a lot of little (and unkown) experts to come forward and add their two cents to a given topic. Wikis allow for a greater and more truthful knowledge to exist. It is easy to see how more truthful and accurate information will exist when anyone can add to the content, rather than a single expert being the only who can have a say on the topic. A wiki seems to be a very versatile tool. You can use wikis to post and do just about anything you want; How cool is that!
     One thing that I always questioned regarding Wikipedia was the open access to edit. I always wondered how they protect the information from people who just want to make trouble and ruin the site. I think that it is really smart and comforting to hear that there is a last saved option that can be used when a person tries to erase the information or mess with it. It is nice to think about the thousands of good people out there who are actually trying to keep accurate information, who correct mistakes and fix the problems that some people create on the wiki. 
     After reading this chapter, I feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of a wiki, and with the idea of using wikis in my own classroom. I think that wikis would come in handy with older children, but I am not sure if I would want to use a wiki with younger students (under 3rd grade). I think that with older students I could use a wiki space for a book project or for a community history project. Regardless of whether or not I personally decide to use a wiki in my classroom, I will definitely encourage my students to use wikipedia on their own; I will encourage them to add their knowledge to any topic that they feel well versed in. I will explain how they should properly use wikipedia and other wikispaces, and I will stress that when they are doing research on a topic they need to always use multiple sources and engage in triangulation.