I have always wanted my 8th grade students the opportunity to share comments about a favorite painting with the class before they created their own. I could see a wiki being used for each student to link to one image of a painting and writing a comment about what they liked best about it. When I have tried to I do this verbally the students often feel shy about sharing... this type of forum gives them a chance to state opinions without everyone in class looking at them. This has the same comfort level for them as texting.
I could start this by providing a collection of sites that would have visual resources of paintings from which they could pick to comment on.
What hurdles might stand in the way of your using a wiki? First, have to be sure our server would allow school access to the wiki. I would then intro this in a computer lab. Because students do not work at the same pace, class time is short and computer lab space so tight,I would probably make this a 'take home' to finish assignment. Students could finish from home or during their AA time at school if library computers are available.
What would it take to remove the hurdles? I'd love to have a small bank of computers right in the art room.
To answer your first hurdle - you should be able to access the wiki from your school server -- several in this PD have commented that they are using wikis at their schools (all different levels) and we have been using them for quite a while at the high school. As for the bank of computers, keep putting it on your wish list, and also maybe apply for a technology grant.
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