Snow Day #2, a.m.

In my wiki exploration, I started with http://edublogawards.com/2010awards/best-educational-wiki-2010/ and choose the Educational Origami blog because I liked the name.  There I found a very helpful section called Starter Sheets.  Starter Sheets are handouts that introduce tools and technologies that could be used in the classroom.  I like handouts that hold my hand, taking me through a new technology (Diigo, Animoto, Twitter, etc.) step by step, and I plan to refer to these as I work my way through various tools and technologies.  I also linked to wikimania here and waded around in the wikimedia world—a place I didn’t realize existed.  I could see putting links to ebooks like Alice in Wonderland on my library website using resources from wikisource.  Many of the books have audio included, so a child could listen and read along.  I know these public domain books are available in other places on the web but not necessarily with an audio component.  

I could definitely lose a few hours looking around at wikimedia commons, a huge database of freely usable media files.  For instance, if you ever need harmonica music for a presentation, the commons has many to choose from!

Next I took a look at kidpedia, a wiki encyclopedia written by fifth graders.  Kidpedia had terms you wouldn’t find in many other encyclopedias, such as: smoothies, “So You Think You Can Dance,” Eminem, and Frosted Flakes.  It wasn’t fancy but was nonetheless a nice example of how young students could collaborate and create a product that was meaningful to them.