Task 7: Wikis

I have a lot of experience w/ wikis, so I was excited about task 7. I checked out some wikis and noticed a few that needed some TLC. Paideiaapes, for example. It looks like it is for middle schoolers, but has no pizazz. Only 1 picture, 11 pages, very few edits, the class discussion was empty. The wiki is a year old and the history shows the average unique visitor is under 5 a day. From Feb to October of 08, there were no edits. The most edits were on the food chain page which was quite long w/0 pictures. It would be so much more inviting and interesting to know what climatis or smilax look like. http://paideiaapes.wikispaces.com/Food+Web. I was so bored. Looking at it closer, it was an AP wiki!! What a waste of time for AP students. So much potential . . . There was a note saying on the projects soil sample page, IT LOOKS LIKE MANY GROUPS STILL HAVE NOT ENTERED THEIR DATA AS OF SUNDAY MORNING. GO AHEAD AND USE THE DATA THAT HAS BEEN POSTED FOR YOUR LAB WRITE-UP. THOSE GROUPS WHO HAVE NOT POSTED THEIR DATA WILL LOSE POINTS ON THEIR LAB REPORT. That's because the students are so uninspried!! Not a lot of effort on the teacher's part and the students are showing the same energy. The other wiki was http://monsonclassroom.wikispaces.com/. It was cute with a picture of the world and inviting colors for the 5th graders. The site posts 1 question a month and the goal is to have 1000 answers from all over the world. I translater site would have been a nice widget to have. I noticed that the monthly goals of 1000 questions were met. It started in 2007 in September w/ 20 visiting countries. In 2008, 62 visiting countries. That must be very inspiring to the 5th graders to know that many visitors from that many countries are interested in them. It makes them want to come up w/ the best and most creative and intriguing questions each month. I enjoyed it.
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