Using Wikis

Wikispaces

www.wikispaces.com

Wikis are collaborative online platforms that allow instructors and students to work together, creating, editing, modifying and publishing multimedia online content. Wikis such as Wikispaces can be used to develop entire units or lessons for your course. This can be done by you or together as a class to complete exciting projects.

Pros:

  • Creates interactive and collaborative free online spaces where groups of people can work together.
  • Are quick and easy to set up and by working with others, you can create a constructivist learning environment that can be continuously developed.
  • Are able to keep track of the history and changes made to the pages which means that you can monitor what students do to the pages, how often they make changes and when they visit.
  • Work together as groups of learners to create texts using the history and editing tools.
  • Allows for a great number of multimedia tools to be embedded to create interactivity on the pages. As well, multimedia on the wikis help students practice and build their knowledge collaboratively while they work together to create exciting projects.

Cons:

  • Requires a high level of planning of the structure may be required before developing a wiki with students in your course. As well, the wiki is a learning tool, so pedagogical planning must be in place prior setting up the wiki.
  • Can be overwhelming tools to use at first due its many possible functions. It may be better to use a wiki initially for simple tasks such as a space to place content, activities, references and links for practice and review of information.
  • Used as a collaborative platform for students to work together, it will require a considerable amount of time for you to monitor and review.

How To:

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    Go to the wikispaces website at Wikispaces.com

  • Watch this short introduction video about this tool.

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    Once you land on the home you will notice you can sign in or sign up. This page will show up on your computer only the first time. You can easily keep this page in your favourites and log in directly to your dashboard every other time. Complete all sign up information in the corresponding fields and then go to your account page.

  • Watch this short video to set up a brand new account on Wikispaces.

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    Your dashboard will look somewhat like the one in the picture. You basically have three tabs. The Dashboard, the mail and the settings. Once you begin to build your wikis, all the wikis you organize and are part of will show up on the dashboard. Think of the dashboard as your hub page where you can find all your content through your wikis.

  • Watch this short video to become familiar with the dashboard of your wiki account.

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    Once you have set up your personal settings (which you can always modify later) set up a new wiki by clicking on the "Create a New Wiki" button on the top right corner of your screen. To create a new wiki you will need a specific name. The name will become the unique URL of your wiki page.

  • Watch this short video to create a brand new wiki.

  • Watch this short video to learn a few simple steps to manage your wiki, including navigation and setting pages.

  • Watch this short video to learn how to add pages to your wiki.

  • Watch this short video to learn how to add and edit text in your wiki.

  • Watch this short video to add pictures to your wiki.

  • Watch this short video to add and manage files in your wiki.

  • Watch this short video to learn how to use tables, and to format your images on a wiki page.

  • Watch this short video to learn how to add a YouTube video in your wiki.

  • Watch this short video to learn how to add video files in your wiki.

  • Watch this short video to learn how to add widgets in your wiki.

  • Watch this short video to share your wiki with your students.

Relevant Literature:

  • Barley Mak, David Coniam. Using wikis to enhance and develop writing skills among secondary school students in Hong Kong. Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong.
  • Rueckert, D., Kim, D. & Yang, M. Using a Wiki as a Communication Tool for Promoting Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Students' Learning Practices. 2007. In R. Carlsen et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 2844-2848). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
  • Sarah Nakamaru. Making (and Not Making) Connections with Web 2.0 Technology in the ESL Composition Classroom. NewVoice.
  • Cole, M. Using Wiki technology to support student engagement: Lessons from the trenches. Computers and Education 52 (2009) 141-146