10+Reasons+Why+Teachers+Need+A+Wiki

10 Reasons Why All Teachers Should Have A Wiki - by Phil Salmon Katikati Primary School
1. Often teachers find/are given great websites. Stored on an individual computer or a piece of paper is a recipe for disaster. A wiki being Internet based is stored off site and can be taken with you where ever you go, all you need is an Internet connection.

2. Many teaching resources are now online. A wiki allows you to store and access them from one portal.

3. Using other peoples Wiki's can be great but often the teaching moment or need comes and goes within a minute. I know excatly what is on my wiki and where to find it because I created it. Start your own wiki and if you find something you like add it to your own wiki so you have the stuff that you know works.

4. A wiki is an ever evolving thing and once started will only get better and better and probably will prove to be your main teaching resource. This is especially true as teaching becomes more and more digital. The earlier you start the better off you and your students will be.

5. A wiki allows you to give kids an authentic audience by easily uploading pictures, text, slide shows of their work while giving you control who can access your wiki. Children can write for Parents/Whanau/Grandparents/Other Schools.

6. It is a fantastic base for students to use as a portal to engage with Internet based learning software. As you find sites relating to Literacy, Numeracy, Science etc that you believe are appropriate to support classroom learning, you can allow students to access these through your wiki. Adding to these as you find them is easy also because you put them their you will know what sites support learning that you are doing.

7. You can access Wiki's on any computers, anywhere with an Internet connection. It doesnt matter which computer children get, they will see the same thing and their is no need to save links onto different computers. Once you up date your wiki, it is updated on all computers

8. Communication with Parents is so easy, notices, information can easily be conveyed through your wiki. The trick is engaing your Parents to visit it regularly.

9. Wiki's are incredibly easy to use for the IT literate and the non-IT literate. Everyone can learn to use a Wiki and have a great deal of success. If it is simply starting with text or importing a slide show for the more advance everyone can do it with a little help.

10. Huge powerful learning opportunties can open up with a little imagination. Work on collabrative projects with your neighbourhood school to improve your community and document your learning/findings/work on a shared wiki. Work on a collabrative project with a school on the other side of the world, many of these are available, adding in skype to communicate with them. Publish your work on a shared wiki and compare notes. Work with a school in a foregin country to create a my school your school wiki. Have a language exchange weekly using skype. If your a kindy work with another kindy to study things that start with the letter ...get the kids to take photos and upload them to a shared wiki. The World Is Yours.