WIKIPedia

Dear Readers
A common unit theme in the classroom is ‘Spinning in Space’. By using Wikipedia to determine the terminology, I then have the option of searching for more authoritative sources to gain information for my learners. While on my exploration of the wiki site I came across some of Wikipedia's sister projects. One sister project which I thought would be a worthwhile tool to incorporate into the classroom is Wikibooks. This wikimedia community is just like an online library with over 30 000 books created and edited by the online community (Wikibooks, 2009). Within this you can access a variety of books within different subject areas with my favourite being Wikijunior books for children. The books within this area are written by an online community of writers and teachers while being child friendly and reliable (Wikibooks, 2009).
Within a unit of work such as 'Spinning in Space' students could use Wikipedia to establish some ground knowledge. Once this has been established the LM can incorporate the use of the Wikijunior books to enhance learner knowledge and assist them within their learning journey. This could also be used as a means to spark brainstorming between the learners on the subject. The use of the Wikipedia Encyclopedia and wiki book could be incorporated into learning design under Olivers resource framework (2003).

Australian University Teachers Committee. (2003). Learning Design. Retrieved August 17, 2009, from http://www.learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/project/learn_design.htm
Wikibooks. (2009).
Wikibooks. Retrieved August 17, 2009, from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
Wikibooks. (2009).
Wikijunior. Retrieved August 17, 2009, from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior
Wikipedia. (2009).
Wikipedia. Retreived August 17, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_is_wikipedia
Kay