Mar 10 2008
Thing 7 – Stretch
As part of the stretch assignment for this Thing, I went to the Wikipedia and did a search on Alzheimer’s Disease. In August my father passed away due to complications of Alzheimer’s Disease, so I felt like this would be a topic that I had personal knowledge of as well as an interest in seeing what’s new on the topic.
The length of the article is impressive, but length alone can not be an indicator of if the article is informative. So I began reading. I was impressed with the content of the article even though the topic itself lends to very technical terms and explanations. When I clicked on the discussion tab I was amazed over the number of posts questioning different components of the content in the article as well as the length of the article itself. the attention given to detail was impressive through out.
The history tab gave me a glimpse of what changes and the extent of the changes that had been made to the article. Overall, the main changes dealt with a grammar error, but not many of the changes had anything to do with the serious details of the article.
My experiences with all of this had let me know that wikis are a valuable tool and the user friendliness and cost effectiveness of them makes it a shame not to use them in our schools.
Referencing my previous blog, I will again say that I am reformed in my thinking about wikis and Wikipedia. The discussion tab alone is a great tool in helping the reader to determine validity of the article’s content.
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Terri: I have enjoyed reading about your mind travels as you learn new tools and review what it means to teach technology and what skills would be useful for our students and teachers. I have been a big fan of wikis but not so much with blogs. Have you thought about how you’ll use this experience with your teachers?