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Educational Question for Unit 1, Task 2, Your Personal Wiki Web 2.0: Impacting Learning Environments Instructor: William Dolton Deborah Thonus

==Hi Classmates! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my educational question! ==

=How can I use blogs and wikis effectively and safely in my third grade classroom?=

I have not yet used either in class, but I have used the site edmodo.com that is similar to facebook. I have students respond to readings that I post and they can then read what each other is thinking about that reading. It is a good use of technology that I think can be used on a wiki page as well. Students enjoy reading what other students have to say about something more than they want to hear what I think about it and once they share with each other thy have more opinions and can better discuss it in class.

Paul Shymanski

When it comes to safety of Wikis, you can make them private so that only people you have invited have access (and you have access to who is a part of the Wiki at all times by looking under "Manage Wiki"). With our school district, one of the ways to make our blogs more safe is by "hiding" the URL so that only if you have the URL can you get to the blogs but I do not know much more about them. Thinking about my daughter (who will be in third grade next year), anything that garners an audience is a hit. Maybe you could have the kids write a short creative piece, type it on Word, copy and paste it as a discussion piece on Wiki, and then pull them up on a screen/board to discuss as a class. Or you could use a sample or two to brainstorm a list of "appropriate peer responses" and then have the kids practice responding on the Wiki by using the class approved list of response (like the approved list of comments on Webkinz)! Good luck. -Kelly Paraskevakos

To use blogs and wikis safely in your classroom, you would need to ensure that you are using the safety features that are built into these technologies. Safety features such as making wikis private and keeping blogs hidden from unwanted viewers are a couple of way s you could keep them safe. To use these technologies effectively I believe that you need to make sure the students are aware of how to properly use these technologies prior to implementing them into your classroom. Time needs to be spent going over the features of the sites as well as the expectation of how the technologies should be used. It would be very useful to establish a set of rules prior to use so that all students are clear on the expectations placed upon them prior to using these technologies. Once expectations are established and students know how to use the technologies, then I believe that the technologies can be used effectively in the classroom. Jason Marcellus

​ Using wikis for responses to literature that is read is a good way to use wikis with third graders, character descriptions, writing the main ideas of sections of literature, etc.. Having students write their hypothesis for experiments might be another way to use wiikis with that grade level. In math students could write their interpretations of data or graphs. Deb Black

I think that using blogs and Wiki’s in third grade would be really great assuming that the stage was properly set. The students should know the guideline to using both the Wiki and the blog, and also know the dangers of using the internet just in case something might happen. I think that an easy at home science project would be something that the students could work on at home and be able to complete blogs on their experiences and post information on the Wiki. These would be great tools for the students to use and I think it is very courageous for you to try these with a third grade class. I think they will do well. Devon Yonemori