Thing 7

I thought the kindergarten Count to 100 page was a neat idea. Nothing was explained, but presumably students could gather items to count and photograph to post. A few numbers were missing, but it was a neat idea. I'd like to try the activity (without the posting) with my son. Since I don't teach kindergarten (far from it!), I don't know if this wiki is simply a twist on an in-class project, but it was a great way to get the kids involved and able to see what they did on a website so they could show their parents.
The Codeblue wiki showed some amazing creativity and writing skills for the students. Some groups had done an excellent job compiling information, but it appeared that some might have spent more time creating their persona that they lost sight of the project. Either that, or links to their work are missing- always a possibility if you forget to add a link!
I was curious about the chemistry wiki, since I also teach science. It looks like it has some considerable resources and work contributed by students, as well as useful course information for students (syllabus, notes, answer to problems). I found it difficult to navigate or figure out what was going on, though. To be useful, at least to someone not in the class that made the wiki, it needs some work to clarify what's available.
The wikis I looked at seemed to be most useful to those involved in creating them- it wasn't very clear what was happening or where to find things. But then, they weren't necessarily created to demonstrate to others what the assignment or project was for, like a lesson plan or lab instructions that might be found a web page. Of course, you wouldn't necessarily want to use a wiki, that could be edited, for lesson plans or lab instructions (unless it was protected).
Using a wiki as a means of collaboration, especially outside the classroom, could be very useful. I like the ideas for students to put together their own study guides, to get them involved in discussions about what's going on in class instead of just memorizing facts to get through the test. I would like to find out if pages could be protected from some users and not others so that a group can add to their page, but another group can't make any changes to it, to prevent sabotage. I started using a wiki with my astronomy classes, but since it was still new to me, I wasn't able to use it for much more than posting assignments. We had some issues with adding student users because students couldn't access their emails to activate their accounts, and a few students didn't have email addresses. I would like to find ways around that, as well. Can I add my students as users, assign passwords, and then they can change their passwords? More things to investigate...