Wikis

=Wikis=

The benefits of using a wiki'

 * Collaboration
 * Multiple editors at the same time on different pages
 * Advertisement free
 * History
 * Ability to easily add text, images, documents, hyperlinks and embedable content such as YouTube or TeacherTube videos, and slide presentation
 * For examples of the types of content which can be embedded, check out this site: Embed Examples
 * Easy to customize the look and feel, e.g. add a logo

Practice

 * Look at examples of educational wikis. Start at: Wikis in Education Click on Examples of Educational Wikis and explore a few wikis for idea for how you can use wikis in your classroom.
 * Create your own free educational wiki. If you are already logged on - go to: @http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers and create a protected (free) wiki. You must create a name that is unique - with no spaces or nonweb friendly characters. Check the box to certify that it will be used for K-12 Education. Once you click "Create" you are on your way. Newly created pages are not saved until you add or edit something on the page. The menu along the side of the screen is automatically created with pages listed in alphabetical order. These are listed in A-Z order because of a built-in widget. If you want them in another order, you can delete the widget and manually enter the links to pages. You can also use numbers in front of text to sort the pages in the correct order.
 * If you accidentally create a wiki which is not listed as a K-12 wiki, then you see advertisements. You can easily change the page to being an educational page by going to your settings section and requesting a change to being a K-12 site. It takes about 24 hours for this change to take effect.

Three Popular K-12 Wiki Sites

 * www.wikispaces.com - Start at @http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers to create a K-12 ad free site (you can change a site to K-12 status.)
 * www.pbworks.com - Use to be called PB Wiki. Popular with educators, nice tutorials and tools.
 * www.wetpaint.com - Many nice tools, worth checking out.

What is a Wiki
A couple of guys started making videos to explain, in plain English, what some common things are and how they work. Eventually, they became pretty popular and so they started a company based on this.

media type="youtube" key="-dnL00TdmLY" height="344" width="425"

Getting Started
Wikis can be incredibly useful. However, you must learn to use them in order for that to occur. Although they are a very simple way to create web pages, they require some up front work. Wikispaces have a set of very helpful introductory videos for beginners. [|Start here]. After just a few minutes you'll be off and running making a classroom or project wiki.

media type="custom" key="4940485"

Wikispaces playlist from www.youtube.com
media type="custom" key="4940491"