Our North Star Wiki
Fellow Voyagers,
This is my first blog entry as a “writer” and an invitation to visit and post comments on my students’ wiki at http://navigation.pbwiki.com/ .
For several years, my students and I created and regularly updated a North Star themed website using Netscape Navigator that was effective…Yet certainly dated and time consuming. Each year, I spent a great deal of time teaching students how to understand HTML and where to save information on the computer used to publish the page.
Last year, a colleague shared the website Peanut Butter Wiki with me and helped set up my classroom site. Ever since, it has become integral aspect of my home-school communication and a great way to share my students’ work with the entire world.
Wiki is a Pacific Islander term meaning “quick” and setting up a classroom wiki can be as quick as making a peanut butter sandwich. Hence the name Peanut Butter Wiki (PB Wiki). What’s great about PB Wiki is that updates to the site can be made at any computer by anyone who has password privileges. My students and I now update the page at school and at home nearly every day, and parents see and read about our classroom’s journey whenever they wish.
Check out navigation.pbwiki.com or go to the site http://pbwiki.com and start your classroom site today.
Cheers,
Kevin
October 21st, 2007 at 11:57 am
What a great idea, Kevin… a wonderful way to maintain a very interactive home/school connection… involving not only you and your parents, but you, the students and parents… not to mention the community!
I really like that students can contribute to the Wiki as well - I enjoyed reading some of their entries. Not only is your North Star Wiki helping students learn more about technology, but I’ll be parents are learning a lot too. A great collaborative, creative and very informative learning experience for all!
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Kevin - I’m so glad you’re posting now - this is EXACTLY the kind of sharing that will make the North Star site so valuable for other educators. What a great suggestion - you’re doing wonderful work with your students and families to bring the themes of the North Star to life in a practical way. You’re making a long-term difference in all their lives.
I also saw the wonderful street painting that your kids did in conjunction with the North Star Musical. You should do a post to share that too. It was a very touching story! (You can post the pics on this site too.)
Cheering you, your kids and their parents on,
Paul