Thing 7

     For thing 7, I took a look at several class wikis.  My favorites were the Monster Project, Schools in the Past, and the Thousands Project.  I also enjoyed looking at the Study Hall wiki created by CoolCat Teacher's Classes.
     My favorite was the Monster Project.  This wiki pairs students in one class with students in another class of the same grade level but possibly in another school even across the country.  The purpose of this wiki is to develop reading and writing skills while using technology. According to the wiki developers,  Ann Oro, Cranford, NJ and  Anna Baralt, St. Petersburg, FL, "During the project, students create, discuss, describe, interpret, analyze, organize and assess their monsters as well as the monsters of their peers."  The Monster Project is particularly well-organized.  It includes very clear instructions on the welcome and getting started pages.  The project is in its third year.  Each year of the project has its own page with a table listing participating classes with links to the resulting original monsters, descriptions and reproduced drawings.  There are seperate pages by year that provide the students with an opportuinity to reflect on the project and how they may have written their descriptions differently.  Not only is this site well organized it includes additional pages for helpful hints, tips and lesson plans.  I can't thnk of anything that is missing from the Monster Project it is a wonderful example.
    Schools in the Past and  the Thousands Project are similar wikis.  They are each class projects that invite participation from guests around the world.  Schools in the Past started by having students interview their parents and grandparents about their school experiences so that they could compare and contrast schools in the past with those in the present.  The results of these interviews were compiled on a wiki and then guests were invited to add to the lists.  With the Thousands Project, Mr. Monson's Grade 5 Classroom poses a question for a world audience to answer. The goal "is to reach at least one thousand answers for each month of the school year... to share our thoughts, get ideas for writing, learn geography from around the world, collaborate with others and read the thoughts of others."  Both of these sites are less detailed with their instructions inviting participation than the Monster Project but well-done nonetheless.
     The Study Hall is a project of high school students who use the wiki to develop study guides for various courses. It appears from the description of this project that it generated a good bit of enthusiasm when it was started.  However, the project looks to have had no activity since 2006. 
     From my early experience with Wikis, it seems that there are two primary benefits.  The first is as a respository of information that can be accessed from multiple computers by many users.  The second and most beneficial use of Wikis is as a tool for collaboration.  I currently manage one wiki and participate in several others.  The wiki that I manage is a respository for information about the McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth act.  I created this wiki as a source of primary information for all school-based McKinney-Vento program liaisons.  It serves its purpose well.  I am also a participating member on several other school ystem wikis that serve much the same purpose as the McKinney-Vento Wiki.  In my opinion, the best use of a wiki is for collaboration between multiple partners on a common project.  While I can see many additional uses for wikis as respositories of information in my professional role I am still searching for a good use as a collabortive tool.  I believe my next wiki will be a training site for school system personnel responsible for data collections.