Wikispaces: A shared webspace

What is a wiki? A wiki is a shared website where members can add/share content for others Simply a wiki is a community webpage Members of a wiki can collaboratively build a learning community resource

The worlds most famous wiki Wikipedia The most commonly known wiki is Wikipedia where a vast community of 'experts' have compiled a word wide community encyclopaedia where content is constantly being uploaded and added to. Changes can be easily undone

Moodle Wiki In this wiki students are invited to share definitions of ePortfolios with other students. The definitions are to be sourced from the internet and referenced.

View tab: This is for viewing the content of the wiki page With a Moodle wiki you can only have one page

The edit tab is used by students for adding content. The usual Moodle WSIWIG editing tools work in the wiki editing space.

Links This is where you can link the wiki page to other places in the Moodle site.

History: This is where any changes can be easily undone by wiki members.

What can a wiki be used for? In an educational sense as used by Wintec tutors Wikis can be used as a collaborative activity for Students: For example sharing websites, brainstorming activities, groupwork, uploading content for others to comment on, organising students, creating knowledge etc.... Wikis are very open and the used is unlimited......

Wikispaces The purpose of this workshop is to introduce the wikispaces wiki.

Wikispaces Wikispaces is an organisation that offers free wikis for educational purposes. Wikispaces offers easily editable wikis with a wide ranges of tools for creating your wiki. The advantage of a wikispace wiki is a wider option of tools and ability to create multiple pages. The wikispace is also available after the moodle module ends. The ownership of a Wiki is always shared.

Wikispaces

Click on Join. Make a wiki later.

This is my dashboard when signed in.

This is the wiki in which we will be practicing our wiki skills.

Administration area: (visible only to members) Home Projects Pages and Files Members Manage Wiki

Wiki Home: This link always takes you back to the home page. This is the page that is the welcome page where you should set out the aims of the wiki. The Welcome Page:

Projects This is a new feature: you can divide your members into groups and they can create their own pages which they can share with the class.

Pages and Files Add new pages Upload Files before they are inserted into pages (just like Moodle)

Manage Files Upload Files Tag files (important) Create a new page

Members Manage your wiki members. If you have created the wiki you are the administrator.

Members: Invite People Remove People Change roles: member to organizer or organizer to member

Recent Changes A list of recent activity on the wiki.

A list of recent changes/alterations

Manage Wiki This is the administration centre of your wiki. This is where you can control the look, security, theme etc… of your wiki.

Manage Wiki

To create a new page click on Pages and Files then New Page.

Name your page and then add tags. Click on Create.

Your page has now been created

Bold Italic Underline Text Colour Font Style bullets number bullets line Standard controls for all wikispace pages:

You can type straight into the wiki page and adjust font etc….. Highlight the text to change. Don’t forget to press save when happy with what you have entered.

Link: this is for linking words and graphics to webpages or files or other wiki pages. File: this is for adding file download links to the page and for uploading files to the wiki. Widget: this is for adding widgets to the page. A widget is a tool for adding web 2.0 content such as an embedded youtube video or calendar.

Linking from an image or text Highlight text, click Link then external link, type or paste in URL and click add link. I usually tick New Window so user is not taken out of wiki.

Link is now highlighted and linked to Google. The process is similar for an image.

Inserting an image Click Files and Images, then Insert Files, select image or Upload File if image on your computer. Or another option is to use an External image if your image is on the web.

Then you have option of alignment, size, add caption or add a link to the file.

Widgets A Widget is a wiki tool that can be used to add external content to your wiki page in an embedded form. It drags content from the web to be displayed in your page. As an example I am going to demonstrate how to embed a youtube video in your wiki page.

Widgets available…

First go to youtube and locate the video you wish to embed. Because this is embedded it gets around any copyright issues.

Click on the Embed link. Then copy the iframe code. Control C (copy shortcut)

Click on Widgets, Video and then YouTube.

Paste the code into the orange box and then click Save.

The youtube video is now embedded into the wiki page. Click Save or preview to see the result.

Youtube is now embedded in the wiki page ready for students to view.

Click on Teacher pages. Have a go at editing your own page. Malcolm will give you a number of the page you can edit. Later have a go at creating your own wiki in wikispace that can support your students in their learning.

Click on your teacher page number.

Click the Edit button and start editing……

Discussion Postings: on each page you can set up discussion activities.

Wikispaces Have a try at setting up your own wikispace and I hope you find this as valuable as I do. To get rid of the advertisements if you click Manage wiki and Subscriptions you can specify that the wiki is for educational use. Wikispaces will then remove the advertisements. Malcolm Roberts