Between the Lines

Wiki Pioneers Share Their Knowledge

Since late December, two 6th grade classes in the Amigos School have been charting unknown technological terrain. Laurie Ferhani’s science classes visited & documented ecosystems around Boston including Deer Island, the Charles River, and Black’s Nook Pond. While it’s great to have information for ourselves, it’s even better to share the wealth, and that’s just what students have done with their “Boston Ecosystems” wiki.

A wiki is an expandable set of webpages that can be written and edited by anyone. Yes, anyone! Our wiki limits editing privileges to “members” (our students), but anyone can view the pages online. Students got an overview of the world of wikis, but most of the learning happened when they jumped in and started creating.

Students wrote individual articles & experimented with formatting text & saving their pages. Learning to use the (sometimes finicky) Wikispaces template was no easy task, but the pioneers displayed typical courage & determination and pressed onward.

One goal of using wikis is to share knowledge through a collaborative writing & editing process. The students have recently combined their individual pages (me) into group-written & edited articles (we) that synthesize and communicate the information students have gathered.

Take a moment to learn more about Boston’s ecosystems from our 6th grade experts today!