Wiki's

I found this chapter really useful. It gave a lot of detailed background knowledge on where wiki's started from, how they are changing, and what type of people are using them. I liked how it gave a lot of resources to create your own wiki in your classroom. I really liked how it answered the question "if anyone can edit anything on the site any time they wan, how in the world can you trust what you read there?" I believe that is the question everyone asks to themselves. Professors and teachers say not to use Wikipedia but in here it says that its one of the best resources you will find!? And I was astounded when I read that wikipedia edits
appear as a rate of around 400,000 a day! Thats incredible. That also means that is a lot of people sitting on a computer and doing a lot of research! I didn't know that wikipedia offereed wikitionary, wikinews,wikispecies, and wikiquotes. I guess I have never spent that much time on wikipedia. Also, I didn't know that there is a discussion tab where you can chat with people about the information that you read in wikis. I thought it was funny when it said that teachers should spend some time checking wikipedia's accuracy on their own, because teachers have all the time in the world to be spending on wikipedia right? I think not, I mean if its a site that you think would be useful for your children I guess I would check the accuracy of the information but just to go on there and look over a ton of different pages, no thanks! I think students should be encouraged to contribute their own accurate information to wiki's, I think that helps them to be responsible and be more confident in their learning. Its a way fro them to see what other people think . I really liked all the websites they provided for different wikis. And I really liked when they talked about the teacher that is working with another classroom in bangledash. Thats awesome that we have to opportunity to work with kids and classrooms all over the world!