Wikis--Collaboration in 2007

We are developing a resource wiki based on the middle school curriculum in the state of Alambama. http://middleschoolresourceroom.pbwiki.com/ Our goal is to have a place where teachers can visit to get ideas, find resources, and post lessons so that teachers can work collaboratively.

This idea came about at our recent technology conference. Our system has only one school at each level--primary (K-2), intermediate(3-5), middle (6-8), and high (9-12). Since we are easily able to let all teachers in one grade level or in one department in a school work together, I felt there was a key piece of collaboration missing--more eyes looking at lessons, more brains working on lessons. After talking with our technology integration specialist, the assistant principal at our school decided this was a project he wanted to set up. It has only been up and running for about 3 weeks, so we still have a lot of areas to fill in.

As we shared the wiki with our staff, we have gotten a variety of responses. Some are very excited and immediately started sharing ideas. Others have been surprisingly territorial of their work. Questions like, "Why should we post things for others to use?" or "What if something I have done gets changed?" We patiently try to answer these questions, but we are still moving forward with our project.

Our newspaper teacher has also started using a wiki with her newspaper staff. Instead of creating a tradional paper, she has set-up a wiki. http://huskypawper.wetpaint.com/. I think she has it protected so you probably can't reply on it, but you certainly can check it out.