Collaborative Writing in Wikis

Wow! That was phenomenal! Writing in a wiki is so much easier than the old-school way of writing a million emails back and forth with drafts upon drafts sent all as separate Word attachments. The editor's task of placing all of these pieces together into one document can be a tedious one. Check email. Download Attachment. Cut. Paste. Format. Blah, blah. With wikis, you can have a whole group edit onto one document vs. individual documents. I love it! While I must admit I missed the excitement of my groups' dialogue because I was late, it was really easy to catch up to see what everyone was doing on the discussion page. Our Collaborative Writing piece on Internet Safety from the Educator's Point of View looks amazing if I do say so myself. Nice work Alan, Amy, Andrea, and Debra! Check it out at http://edcg611.wikispaces.com/iNet_Safety_A!

Wiki Reflections

• Successful - YES. In numerous ways. See benefits.
• Benefits - not a million emails, discussion tab kept a continous thread of all members input, all one doc, no attachments coming from 5 different people, no piecing together, user friendly, clean.
• Drawbacks - NONE.
• Technology helpful? - Extremely! I'm very happy I choose to take this class.

I loved the way the assignment was designed to be two-fold. Not only were we learning how to use wikis but we also were researching and discovering many different ways how we can educate our students about Internet safety. After reading and viewing many articles, sites, blogs and videos, I thoroughly understand the critical importance of helping our children to be safe on the Internet.

ps. Team B and C did an extraordinary job too! Nice work! Can't wait to be able to use these guides in my own classroom/ in real life!