the unexpected

When I created my new website at the beginning of the school year on webs.com I never imagined some of the results. I set out to use the 'wiki' to have students not only collaborate, but also provide feedback on our writing to make us better writers. Well . . . because the wiki requires members, and the web site allows for comments, 'blogging', the students have created a classroom community on line. They not only communicate with each other, but have emailed me more and posted comments to me regarding homework, errors in the calendar or just to let me know if they are coming in early to work. Without prompting, they went to the Forums page and started to comment on a discussion I posted. I was just getting ready for the next week, and some students noticed it on the weekend and started to add their voice. I am loving the positive energy this website is creating. A safe place for my class to 'chat' with each other - about school, about other kid stuff. If you had asked me about this at the beginning of the year I would have said that I would discourage the use of the website for this use, but now after I see some of the results - what can I say. I don't think it would have work as well if I had tried to make this online community happen. Then again who knows.