Odvard Egil Dyrli on wiki sites: these web sites offer collaboration opportunities but have potential drawbacks.The Houston Independent School District The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest public school system in Texas and the seventh-largest in the United States.[1] Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and insular municipalities. is one of the topics in the free online encyclopedia called Wikipedia. The reference describes the accomplishments of individual schools and the work of former employees Rod Paige Roderick Raynor "Rod" Paige (born June 17, 1933), served as the 7th United States Secretary of Education from 2001 to 2005. Paige, who grew up in Mississippi, built a career on a belief that education equalizes opportunity, moving from college dean and school superintendent to be and Laura Bush. But it also presents controversial allegations that the district failed to report incidents of violence to the police, and that "HISD HISD Houston Independent School District (Texas) HISD Highway Information Services Division (Maryland) coerced administrators at many schools to lie on dropout (1) On magnetic media, a bit that has lost its strength due to a surface defect or recording malfunction. If the bit is in an audio or video file, it might be detected by the error correction circuitry and either corrected or not, but if not, it is often not noticed by the human rates." While it may seem unusual for such information to appear in an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is a reference like none other, and also includes articles about schools from Long Beach, N.Y., to Beverly Hills Beverly Hills, city (1990 pop. 31,971), Los Angeles co., S Calif., completely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles; inc. 1914. The largely residential city is home to many motion-picture and television personalities. , Calif. And, facts and opinions about your district may be included, too. Wikipedia is written entirely by volunteers from around the world who prepare articles on whatever interests them. It is an example of a new form of online collaboration called a "wiki A Web site that can be quickly edited by its visitors with simple formatting rules. Developed by Ward Cunningham in the mid-1990s to provide collaborative discussions, there are several "wiki" tools on the market for creating such sites, including www.editme.com, www.seedwiki.com, www. ." Since it was started four years ago, more than 6,000 contributors have worked on 600,000 articles in 50 languages, and Wikipedia now includes in-depth content on countless topics such as capitalism, evolution and war. Your staff needs to know about wikis See wiki. and the benefits and challenges they bring to schools. What's a Wiki? A wiki--the name comes from a Hawaiian term for "super-fast"--is a special Web site that allows users to put information online easily, and allows anyone to change the content submitted by others. As Web log, or "blog," software made it easy for individuals to post personal thoughts, observations and even diatribes in online diaries, wiki software extends that concept to groups. Wikis are powerful ways to share collective expertise, gain from the insights of others and get feedback on ideas. As a user who posted an article described the experience, "Several people chipped in, sometimes rewriting a paragraph, sometimes criticizing an omission, sometimes deleting parts, and the article is now much better than I could ever have written alone." Each day visitors to Wikipedia from around the world create thousands of new articles, and make tens of thousands of edits. Wiki concepts can also be applied to other kinds of online activities, and the success of Wikipedia led to related references including a Wiktionary dictionary and thesaurus, Wikiquote compilation of quotations, Wikisource collection of source documents, and more than 250 volunteer-authored textbooks and manuals called Wikibooks. Several corporations such as Eastman Kodak are using wikis for applications including brainstorming and shared document writing, and school districts are starting to experiment with the form. However, wikis are also criticized because people can post inaccurate or inflammatory entries, and may inadvertently or deliberately vandalize or delete the work of others. Wiki coordinators claim errors are soon corrected, and peer pressure usually keeps such problems in check. And, since the software also stores previous versions of articles, no material is ever lost. In addition, a wiki may be password-protected, and violators can be blocked from participating. School Wikis In addition to encouraging staff and students to try and contribute to Wikis, such as Wikipedia and WorldHistory.com, some schools are developing their own, using various selections of free and fee-based wiki software. For example, Rob Lucas Rob Lucas is an Australian politician and a Liberal Party of Australia Member of the Opposition in the South Australian Legislative Council, and was re-elected in the 2006 election. , in Rocky Mount Rocky Mount, city (1990 pop. 48,997), Edgecombe and Nash counties, E N.C., on the Tar River; settled by 1818, inc. 1867. The growing city is the commercial and distribution center of a rich agricultural area (tobacco, cotton, and corn) as well as a large tobacco , N.C., started the Teachers' Lounge Wiki for teachers to share lesson plans and resources, and Tim Lauer in Portland, Ore.'s Lewis Elementary School elementary school: see school. is setting upa wiki for students to write a monthly newspaper. The resources below will help you learn more and get started. Web Resources * Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org * Wiki Books www.wikibooks.org * Wiki Watch www.weblogg-ed.com/newsltems/departments/wikiwatch * Wiki Wiki Web c2.com/cgi/wiki?wikiwikiweb * WorldHistory.com Wiki www.worldhistory.com/wiki * Teachers' Lounge Wiki teacherslounge.editme.com Odvard Egil Dyrh, dyrli@uconn.edu, is senior editor and emeritus professor of education at the University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut is the State of Connecticut's land-grant university. It was founded in 1881 and serves more than 27,000 students on its six campuses, including more than 9,000 graduate students in multiple programs. UConn's main campus is in Storrs, Connecticut. . |
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