Welcome to the Wiki World and other updates

Today my class began using the netbooks during problem solving. Students posted their answers in the comment section of my class blog. Students did not have any problems posting, just following my directions. During science students made predictions on how long different types of trash (banana peel, plastic jug, brown bag,etc) took to decompose. Students then went to two different websites to see how long it actually took these items to decompose. Students were shocked to see how that glass bottles never decompose and a plastic milk jug takes 1 million years! As one student said, "Wow we go through like 3 gallons a week!" Throughout our study of conservation the past 2 weeks (thanks to our science curriculum) students have really had a lot of "ah ha" moments!

Beginning this Friday students will begin making their posters to encourage other students to recycle and take care of the environment. Last week I found our about the environmental awareness contest the district participates in. I told my students everyone would be participating this year because we will be working on this in class. Students will have the opportunity to create an ad or write a news article. My plan is to have students make 2 copies of their ad - 1 to submit and 1 to post around school. Too bad they can't submit a glog.

My class wiki is FINALLY up and running. Today I spent a few minutes explaining how we are going to be using the wiki. Tomorrow will be their first day using the wiki. One of the things I really like about the wiki is that students can type their comments right onto the page...as opposed to the blog where they need to go to the comments section and no one may ever see it. I stressed the importance of NOT deleting other people's comments. We'll see how this goes tomorrow. Eventually, I would like my students to have discussions about reading group books on our wiki.

Quick update--the wiki didn't go as well as I expected. We ended up posting comments on our class blog. Comments were being deleted, so we'll try the wiki again with another project.