Featured Wiki: ICTmagic

Martin Burrett started the ICTmagic wiki in December of 2010.

1. Briefly describe your group, your wiki, and what you use it to do:
My wiki page began as a way of sharing useful websites with my colleagues at Mersea Island School, a large rural Primary school (k-5), near Colchester in the south-east of England. Since then the wiki has grown into a hub of teaching resources that I find or have recommended to me by the amazing educators on sites like Twitter and Diigo.

2. Besides the Edit button, which wiki feature is your favorite?
Being able to embed files, links, html coding, videos and other media so easily has meant that Wikispaces has made a great home for me on the Internet. Wikis can be slowly built up and added to from humble beginnings and grow into something quite wonderful. So they are ideal for teachers who now are taking their first steps online. Also, because a number of users are able to add to a wiki through a moderator, they are perfect for showcasing the work and learning of a class in a public, but safe environment.

3. What is one way you’re using wikis and other web 2.0 tools in your Projects?
I use a Wikispaces page as a class site. The children edit their own pages and add their own resources from other web tools and sites. A current favourite is a site called Glogster, which makes interactive and animated online posters. The children have used these in many ways over this year, including making eco posters to encourage green behaviour in the local area and design movie posters for their animated cartoons. Wikispaces has provided a good, easy place to embed these posters and add extra information on the same page.

4. Tell us about a particular moment that made you say, “Aha! THIS is why I use wikis!”
About six months ago, during a period of heavy snow, our school had to close for two days. I posted the news to the jubilant children on our wiki page and suggested a few snow related tasks the children could do when they finally got too cold from building snowmen and throwing snow balls. What I found on our wiki page the next day was remarkable. Many of the children had made collaborative snow and winter project pages with videos, stories, blog posts, animations, scanned images and photos. It was a wonderful surprise.

5. If you could ask it, what do you think your wiki would say about you?
I would like to think that my ICTmagic Wiki says that I am a dedicated teacher who enjoys sharing resources with colleagues from across the world to aid them in their teaching and help bring IT skills to more children. While that is true, there is also the enjoyment I have had creating the wiki and watching it grow during the long insomnia ridden hours of the early morning.