Get Wiki With It Using PB Wiki & Google Sites in the classroom Kim Zimmer, Technology Facilitator Avoca West Elementary School, District 37 avoca37.org/zimmerk

Technology Horizons in Education

Wiki What? Wiki is the Hawaiian word for “fast or quick” Wiki Wiki -”Really Quick” bus at the Honolulu airport Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A Wiki History In 1994, Ward Cunningham, developed the first Wiki application ever written, to make the exchange of ideas between his computer programmers easier. He called this application “WikiWikiWeb.” The most famous legacy of WikiWikiWeb is probably Wikipedia.

The Wiki...according to Ward “The simplest online database that could possibly work” Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users. Source: What is Wiki Users can freely create and edit Web page content.

A wiki is continuously “under revision.”

Why use wikis in education? Wikis facilitate communication. Wikis encourage collaborative learning and information sharing. Wikis increase student engagement and participation.

Wiki Standards NET-S (National Education Technology Standards)

Source: 50 Uses for a Wiki in the Classroom

Let’s Get Wiki with It! Feature Allows you to create student accounts Students as Collaborators Embed Multimedia Student Accountability Teacher Friendly Public or Private Yes Yes Yes or No Yes

Setting up classroom accounts

bookblurbers.pbwiki.com OR /a/collaboratory.northwestern.edu/5ascarycast//a/collaboratory.northwestern.edu/5ascarycast/Teacher

How do teachers introduce wikis to students? Create a mock wiki on the chalkboard or whiteboard. Have students focus on a topic and “add” their knowledge to the board over time. They can erase, edit and continue to add information. Translate that to a wiki lesson. Introduce students to the rules for writing on wikis or have them come up with their own rules. Develop a system for recording the efforts and accomplishments of individuals. (You can accomplish this by having students sign the pages they author or contribute to.) Almost every wiki has a StyleGuide: a guide to the writing customs and the culture of the wiki. Have students collaboratively write a StyleGuide for their wiki. Ask students to play particular roles. One important role is the "Guard"--the person who watches the wiki pages and ensures that spam or bad edits are not entered, undermining the hard work of the wiki authors. Watch Wiki’s in Plain English with your students:

50 Ways to Use Wikis Cool Cat Teacher Educational Wikis Resources for Educators