There are lots of wikis out there… But I like…

A how-to for the classroom

Setting up a Wikispace 1.Go to wikispaces.com 2.Click on 3.Then click on the k-12 link here

4.Fill out the stuff -your username is what you will sign in as -Remember your password -You will have to verify from this address later -Click make a wiki -This will be the name of your wikispace page- NO SPACES -Settings If your students don’t have e- mails, you will have to set it to public If they do, set it to either protected or private - Check the Educational Use box to get your wiki with no ads

5.Welcome to your new wikispace! - Each page has five tabs 1. Page- what you see when you go to the site 2. Discussion- a place to argue 3. History- so you can keep track of changes and reset if necessary 4. Notify me- you can set to get an anytime there are changes to the page 5.And the most important tab, the edit button- that’s where we’ll start

Changing your wiki 1.Simple text editing - The edit tab brings up this toolbar. Once this toolbar comes up, you can type in the page. Some buttons should be recognizable- bold, etc, and numbers/tabs -To make the text bigger or smaller, change normal to what heading size you like -Or there is the more complicated text pallette -Which brings up this

2.Inserting a link on your page -click the link button -Click the External link tab -Paste the address here -Type what words you want to be the link in the top box -If you want the link to open in a new window, check the box -Click the “add link” button -It looks like this on the page

3. Inserting a picture -click the file button from the toolbar -The Easy Way: 1.Click upload files 2.Find the picture on your computer 3.After it finishes loading, click on it to put it onto your page -The Other Way 1.Click the external images tab 2.Paste the location of the image from the internet 3.Double-click it to put it into the page - You then get a picture toolbar where you can resize it, align it, or make it a link

4. Inserting a file -it’s the same process as a picture -Upload file, find it, then click on it when it loads -It shows up as a block with it’s own toolbar for resizing, alignment, and editing -After you save the page, it looks like this on the page

5.Widgets & Tables -Tables are fairly self-explanatory, you get this box -Widgets encompass a wide range of things you can do on your wiki -Most of them are for embedding things in your page -They usually involve pasting a link to where the source was

Making a New Page 1.Making a page- just click on new page at the top left. 2.Name the page 3.Tags- topics that the page will be about- this allows people to search by keyword and find this particular page. You can put as many tags as you want 4.Your new page will have a link to it on the navigation bar on the left

The Tabs 1.Discussion- Every page has a built in discussion feature- it’s like a message board for each page -all messages are organized into threads based on the first message posted -To respond, click on the subject of the thread you want and post a reply -If you click “monitor topic” you can be ed each time someone updates the page -To start a new thread, click New Post from the discussion page

2.History- Wikispaces keeps a record of every version of the page, who changed it, and how it was different -If users are logged in, their usernames appear, if not, it says Guest and their IP address -To see what a particular person changed, click on the date -You will get a version of the page where everything they added is in green, and everything they deleted is in red -You also have the ability to reset to this version, if the newer one is not to your liking

3. Notify Me- you can be updated about page changes by or RSS -you can set it to monitor either edits or discussions -This section only tells you about this page in particular

Manage Wiki 1.Pages- rename, delete, lock pages in the wiki 2.Templates- want all your pages to look the same? Make a template. 3.Members- view, remove, or add new members 4.Permissions- set to public, private, or protected 5.Look & Feel- change background colors, themes, make it pretty- you will be asked to verify it’s a educational wiki to upgrade and activate this feature 6.Notifications- like a Notify Me for the whole wiki