Blogs and Wikis

Lately I've been using the edublogs.org pages for a new team blog. It gets through the filter and the students are starting to use it!! I have a few comments so far, with the current topic being the 50 year anniversary of Sputnik and how it still affects our lives today. The uses may change, but right now it's just another tool to interact with the kids and to get some extra science in that doesn't EXACTLY match the curriculum map that I've been given. If something happens, it will be discussed on the blog and linked to a page for the students to read.
As an added bonus, by getting myself an edublog (thanks to another teacher in the social studies department!), I get a free wiki!!! My add-free wiki is now free for me!!! NICE!!!! That saves me the 50 bucks I thought I had to spend to keep it!! I can keep it for free, even though my students still can't really access it at school. Even so, the hits are continuing. Today, after I assigned a small assignment on completing some graphic organizer style of notes, I heard a girl say to her neighbor who was complaining, "It's easy. I saw it on the wiki last night, just go there and there's your homework". While this wasn't the idea, at least a few are looking ahead and/or exploring it. I'm happy that this is working in some way.
On top of that, the learning support classes that I used to co-teach with a LS teacher have ended and a teacher that hasn't taught this stuff in YEARS is now teaching 8th grade science to the LS kids on her own. In talking with this person, I've determined that she could use help and I've been helping as much as possible. This week I directed her toward the wiki and invited her to let her kids have the address, or for her to take the WS and SG off the wiki to use for her classroom. I haven't talked to her since then, but am hoping that this little tool will help her too. I don't care if my stuff is used, just throw a little credit my way once in while and I'll be happy! Yet another way that this semi-banned tool is useful in context of teaching.
Get a blog at Edublogs and then get a free wiki with 2gigs of space and 20meg file limit and NO ADS!! So far, the wiki is the most useful, intuitive way to get a web presence. It requires no software and no special computer skills. Uploads and links are easy, and most importantly, only those you give privileges to change things can....Oh and by the way, you can save your wiki and restore it just in case some yoyo deletes or changes things. Right now I LOVE MY WIKI!!!
On Monday, I'll go to a meeting with the committee in charge of blogs and wikis and see what happens. I'm hopeful that I can get students full access to the wiki during school and hope that I can demonstrate the uses and the safeguards in place. So far parents seem to approve and encourage this tool's use. If I can get this across, I'll be OK.