The original idea that I posted about in my first post was using a wiki with my classroom. I envision a class website about a particular social studies topic in which different groups of students would be responsible for the content in different categories. In the past, I have had my students write research reports on Ancient Egypt, but I think Egypt would also lend itself well to a wiki project. Other civilizations from the 6th grade curriculum would work for this project as well, such as Greece, Mesopotamia, Rome, Hebrews, China, or India, but due to time constraints in teaching standards that aren’t tested, I usually have to focus on just a few civilizations, and Egypt is one that the kids usually get excited about. Success in this project might lead us to create wikis for other civilizations as well.

I’m thinking that the wiki will probably be done in wikispaces, which I have become somewhat familiar with. I didn’t really like pbwiki all that much, and I don’t know how much time I’ll have to experiment with other sites. I’m currently envisioning a main page that I will be constructing with links to other pages that are focused on different categories relating to Egypt. I will create a kind of template with a variety of topics and questions for each category to guide the content that the students add to each page. I’m also hoping that there will be time for students to create artwork that can be displayed on the site as well as some short videos. Our Egypt unit also coincides with a field trip to the San Diego Natural History Museum, which has a great Egypt section. They have always allowed me to take pictures of their displays, so student photos could also be included in the wiki.