Impressions of Wikis

I think this is a really great idea. I am really excited about all the new technology I am learning. I like that with a wiki you can see everything all at once when people post. You don't have to click on the comments in order to see what people say. I am doing a Young Adult Literature class where we are reading novels and posting our comments about the books to a wiki. Then all participants can go on and look at what everyone has said about their books. I never really knew what Wikipedia really was. I guess a site like that could be beneficial, but I think about all the times my students have asked me to use information from that to do research and it makes me cringe to think that basically anyone can post information on the site. I think we really need to educate our students about finding appropriate sources and Wikipedia probably isn't a good one to choose for our kind of research. I think if students are looking for social perceptions about differnt people or concepts then that might be a time to use Wikipedia. I was thinking I might try to use a wiki in my classroom later in the year. I would like to have kids create summaries and comments about their books. Kind of like an online booktalk to help other kids find interesting books to read for Literature Circles. I also could see using a wiki to publish writing pieces or poems.