Wikis and blogs give infinite possibilities for ways to use them in a classroom but collaboration is the biggest benefit to using them in the classroom. The sharing of information and building of knowledge that occurs in them is unbelievable. Another benefit is the organizational aspect of them: less paper clutter because everything can be posted virtually, no wasted time on announcements, no student deniability of assignment due dates and requirements, all permission slips/forms in one place, useful websites can be stored in one place etc. They are perfect tools for project-based learning and fostering creativity.
http://www.smartteaching.org/blog/2008/08/50-ways-to-use-wikis-for-a-more-collaborative-and-interactive-classroom/
http://www.techlearning.com/curriculum/0035/eight-ways-to-use-school-wikis/46216
After reading the articles listed above I got a few more ideas on specifics I would like to use in my classroom. One idea I liked was the "Fan Club". I think students would get very creative and they would learn alot from other classmates as well. The lesson could be interdisciplinary, including an English lesson on biographies/autobiographies since students would have to learn about their historical figure to know what is interesting and unique about that person. You could also have students pretending to be the actual historical figures on the fan club site, and they could blog back and forth with other historical figures from that time period (the other person must be over the age of...let's use 15 and alive at the same time the other figure was also over age 15 in order for the two to "converse" on the blog). This would give students a greater understanding of who were contemporaries and help them visualize what different times in history were like. I'm sure I am just scratching the surface here brainstorming some uses for this one particular use of a wiki.
Another idea to use in the classroom from one of the articles was the idea of virtual field trips. While this idea is very, very, very broad I think it explores how teachers can use the web to bring the outside world virtually to the students since we cannot bring the students to the outside world literally. I also love the idea of being able to access students from other countries, and even from different parts of our own country to share ideas about a topic in school. One specific idea I thought of immediately, as a beginning lesson with peers that live hundreds of miles away, would be to do the beginning lesson on something as simple as climate and the math concept of the metric system. Students could write on a blog about what the climate was like at their school that day, take pictures of what it looks like outside or what kinds of creatures are out in the native climate to post, take temperature readings and convert them to between F and C, etc. Or even the whole learning of the metric system may be easier when conversing with peer groups who live outside the US and use the metric system everyday.
In summary, almost every simple lesson can be enriched by incorporating the use of a blog or wiki because of the educational value of information sharing and seeing other viewpoints that would not have been seen otherwise.
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