WIKIS & WHAT TO DO WITH THEM

Carol Gaughran, MLSSchool Library Media Specialist

GCSD Superintendent’s Conference Day March 13, 2009

What’s a WIKI?

Wiki in Hawaiian means fast or quick, and a wikis is just that; a fast way to create a website for your own use.

It’s fast and easy to create fast and easy to change Anyone can do it

Website Wiki

Set-up Moderate to difficult Easy

Appearance Can be totally customizable if created from scratch. Appearance depends on programming skills.

Usually only a few choices of very plain templates

Updating Can be difficult and time-consuming. Usually need to go through IT department

Easy and instant

Storing Files Generally not available Yes

Collaboration/ Communication

Not usually; More single direction site. Visitors can only view information, not add to it. Requires expertise to code

Multiple users can edit content of pages and post comments

Attributes of a Wiki

Organize and store all of your information Password protected so only invited

members can view and edit pages Information can be easily updated Page history allows you to view and/or

revert to old versions

Suggested Uses

Replace eboards Communicating with students and

families at home Class projects Unit planning Field trip planning Curriculum mapping Departmental/team planning

While there are multiple hosts on the web for creating wikis,

the two I suggest for educational uses are:

PBWIKI.COM&

WIKISPACES.COM

Let’s Make a Wiki

1. Go to “pbwiki.com”2. Click on “Create an account”3. Use your GCSD email to create an account4. Check your GCSD email for notification

from pbwiki5. Click on the pbwiki link in the email to get

started6. Click on “Home”7. Click on “Create a wiki”

Creating a wiki (continued)

8. Click on “Create an academic wiki”9. Choose a wiki address name10. Click on “For Education”11. Choose “K-12 Classroom” from the

dropdown bar12. Choose “Collaborative Classroom” from

the “wiki purpose’ dropdown bar13. Click “next”14. Complete security settings and click

“Take me to my wiki”

Welcome to Your Wiki

Parts of a wiki Front Page – acts as your home page

and will always be the first page people see when they log in

Sidebar – can be used for many purposes, best use is as a table of contents (you can make each entry a hot-link to an additional wiki page)

Create a Page - lets you add new web pages to your wiki

Welcome to Your Wiki (continued)

Upload Files - allows you to upload pictures, sound files, videos or documents from your computer or from the internet

Now get creativeand have some fun!

Works Cited

Bellizi, Dominic, Jessica Brown, and James Byers. wikispaces. Dec. 2008. Tangient LLC. 10 Mar. 2009 <www.wikispaces.com>.

Lai, Adrienne. "WEB TOOLS FOR STUDENT GROUP SUCCESS." SLAIS/Irving K. Barber Learning Centre Digital Media Project. 10 Feb. 2009. Scribd. SLAIS/Irving K. Barber Learning Centre Digital Media Project. 10 Mar. 2009 <http://www.scribd.com/doc/12105730/AMS-clubs>.

Pbwiki. pbwiki. 2009. pbwiki. 10 Mar. 2009 <www.pbwiki.com>.

"Seven Wiki Essentials An Executive Guide to the 7 Must-Have Elements of Every Successful Wiki Initiative." pbwiki. 2009.

pbwiki. 10 Mar. 2009 <http://pbwiki.com/f/ seven-wiki-essentials.pdf>.