The Vail School District in southern Arizona created a collaborative Wiki where they can put lesson plans they created and that their students enjoyed. That way, other teachers from the school can use them and adapt it to their class. Digitizing it helps teacher create new projects and can also give them ideas. They can even extend their collaborative Wiki so that other school districts can use them and add their own lesson plans. It is a good thing for students too because if their teacher uses these lesson plans, they can be sure that it'll be a fun course.
As (Kovacic & al., 2007) article says, the use of Wikis is a useful and innovative way of enriching the learning environment of students. This citation applies well tothe video about the Vail School District. In fact, I think that, by using other teachers' lesson plans, a teacher can vary his way of teaching and that way, students experience new learning strategies and get bored less quickly. Wikis are also an Internet-based alternative to the traditional teachings on the blackboard. It is a fun and interactive way of teaching and students need that.
A good thing about Wikis is that everyone can contribute to them and that it cannot be spammed because you can retrace the person that shared the post. These teachers could also use a brainstorming Wiki which they can use to brainstorm ideas for a project or assignment (Sze, 2008). They can even use it to share comments about the lesson plans they borrowed from other teachers.
http://www.edutopia.org/stw-differntiated-instruction-budget-resource-collaboration-video
Marino you are very pertinent with your post. I find it is very interesting the way that this school started a project like this. If you have more info keep me posted. I will consider learning more about the different uses of wikis!
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