Wikis

Using Wikis in the Classroom


 What are wikis and how can we use them in education?

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 * View [|Wikis in Plain English] video from Common Craft
 * Download the Educause PDF about using wikis in education: [|7 Things About Wikis] from Educause Learning Initiative. This flyer would be a great way to start a conversation with your technology director and administrator about having a class wiki.
 * View the [|Wiki Walk-Through] on the Teacher's First website for a quick introduction to wikis and how to use them in your classroom.

Check out the educational wikis listed below to see how other educators are using wikis! 
 * List of educational wikis provided by Wikispaces
 * Wikispaces discusses [|educational use of wikis]
 *  Mrs. Ibrahim's Second grade class wiki
 * [|Vicki Davis'] Westwood Schools wiki in Camilla Georgia
 * Welker's Wikinomics, winner of the 2007 EduBlog Awards "Best Educational Wiki" award, for students and teachers of Economics
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">New York high school [|class wiki on Macbeth]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Honors British Literature class wiki using discussion tabs for class discussions
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Teachers/Librarians Virtual Cafe is a wiki that organizes the virtual conversations librarians are having about 21st Century libraries.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">[|Classroom2.0 wiki] for educators

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 130%; text-align: center;">Here are some companies that host wikis: >
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Wikispaces is commited to providing educators with ad-free wikis for their classrooms. They also have a [|K-12 program] for school districts that provides a private label and enhanced privacy features.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">[|PBWiki]'s information on educational use of wikis, including [|K-12 examples of educators' wikis], [|engaging students in an online classroom] (webinar), and a [|library of resources] to help teachers use PBWiki; [|Adding footnotes to a PBwiki].
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">[|Wetpaint] wiki on using wikis in education
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">[|Weebly] allows users to create a free website and blog

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 130%; text-align: center;"> Creating our own wikis at Wikispaces.com
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Sign up here to create a wiki for yourself. Be sure that you indicate that your wiki is for educational purposes.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Wikispaces has a wiki on how to create a wiki. View video tutorials on setting up your wiki.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Share your wiki with us by clicking on the discussion tab above and posting your wiki's name and URL.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Visit other participants' wikis and then come back to this page and post comments for them on the discussion for this page.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Take your wiki to the next level with resources from the Getting Tricky With Wikis. This wiki has an amazing amount of tips for jazzing up your wiki with clear instructions and screen shots. Check it out!
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Password protect individual pages by adding code to the Other HTML widget. To see the code, log in here with the password //**wikis**//. This information came from the Getting Tricky With Wikis site mentioned above.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">**Note:** Hold your students accountable and model good digital citizenship by citing your sources on your wiki. Read instructions on how to add references to your Wikispaces wiki at this link: @http://blog.wikispaces.com/2008/07/add-references-to-your-wiki.html

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">Watch Jimmy Wale's talk on FORAtv.org. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 132%;">He <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">is the founder, board member and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit corporation that operates the Wikipedia project, and several other wiki projects, including Wiktionary and Wikinews. He is also the co-founder, along with Angela Beesley, of the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. He speaks about the vision of a social community coming together to collaboratively build a free encyclopedia of knowledge. He emphasizes that Wikipedia is a social phenomenon and explains how the community works together not only to write but to monitor and edit information to insure accuracy. The presentation is about 30 minutes, but it well worth your time!

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