1. Wikispaces for Teachers A Guide to Using Them in Your Classroom
Overview:
This presentation is a template we have prepared for you to use in your own presentations about using wikis in education. We encourage you to use the parts you like, change it around to suit your purposes, and send us the final presentations you use so that we can improve our materials. We hope this guide is helpful in making your presentation a success.
This presentation covers what Wikispaces is, why it’s beneficial for teachers, how to begin using it, how to manage Wikispaces to suit the specific needs of teachers and their classrooms, and the features we have that they might find useful.
Key points for this slide:
Wikispaces is a tool that can help teachers teach, organize their classrooms, and in general foster classroom participation.
Remember to introduce yourself and explain when and why you started using Wikispaces, how it has changed your teaching experience, and why you think they can benefit from it like you have. Your experiences will be the best example for your audience.
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Today’s Agenda
Overview of wikis
Examples of use, account information, and accessibility
How to…
Create your own
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What is a Wiki?
A webpage with an Edit button
Easy to use
Perfect for collaborative learning
There are different types of Wiki
We have chosen Wikispaces
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Wiki information
An online writing space for you and others you decide to invite to your pages
No experience necessary. Does not require knowledge of html
You are up and running in minutes
A multimedia storage space for videos, audio, pdf, docs, etc.
Multitude of uses to meet your needs
Easy to make and add pages
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5. Why Bring It To The Classroom?
Posting homework
Creating a forum for discussion with students
Use as a writing tool for students
Classroom discussion and debate
Collaborate with an international classroom
Promotes communication between students, teachers, and external resources.
Collaborative environment for student group projects
Display student work
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6. Online Discussions Using A Wiki
Each page on a Wikispaces site has a “Discussion” option at top of page:
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7. Online Discussions Cont.
On the “Discussions” tab, anyone who is a member of the wiki can post a topic (on Wikispaces, “Subject”) or reply to a topic
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8. Online Discussions Cont.
The goal of an online discussion w/ students is to get them to converse with each other – to share ideas, ask each other questions, attempt to answer other students’ questions, etc.
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Activity
Check out these wikis:
Mrs. Kelly’s Room – 3rd graders discuss books they’re reading – several students participate from home
Mr. McDade’s Room – music listening prompts for discussion (click on the grade level links)
The Lonigro Lowdown – Guided Reading Discussion Blog has some good guidelines for online discussion; also check out the Collaborative Class Story
Brown Read 180 – HS English teacher in Akron, OH – lots of discussions & technology integration
Classroom Braids – international collaborative project
To prepare for the activity, make sure you create a space before the presentation.
You can have them add the following to their page:
1) A flag of the country you are teaching about
2) A list of the country’s major exports (include at least 3)
3) A link to a website that can offer more resources about said country
Some things to consider:
It is often easiest to make the space public so that you don’t have to invite the participants as members.
We suggest that the space have an equal number of pages as participants in order to facilitate the process of assigning a page for each person to work on for their country lesson.
If the teachers do not yet have a Wikispaces account, they cannot upload images from their computers, but they can add media. Take this into consideration when you set up the activity. Will you create the accounts beforehand, have them create their own accounts, or will you design the activity so they won’t upload images?
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Getting Started
The rest of the presentation is geared to informing teachers about the basics of Wikispaces and helping them to edit a wiki of their own.
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11. Getting a Teacher Account
Called the PlusPlan for K to12
Go to to apply
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12. Permission levels @wikispaces
Wikispaces has different permissions settings for your space
Public: Anyone can view or edit your Wikispace
Protected: Anyone can view your space but only members can edit
Private: Only members can view or edit your space
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13. Creating Student Accounts
User
Creator. This option is available once you have an approved teacher site.
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14. Follow the wizard to import users
You can import a spreadsheet with account info.
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Editing Your Wiki
Click the Edit This Page button at the top of your wiki
Write the text you would like on your page
You can format it with bold, underline, italics, headings, and more
Once you are done editing, click Save
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16. Adding Links on Your Wiki
Click Edit This Page
Highlight the text you’d like to link & click on the earth icon in the toolbar
Another window appears allowing you to create a link to another page in your space or another website (external)
Click Ok
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17. Adding Images to Your Wiki
Click Edit This Page
Click the icon that looks like a tree
Browse your computer for the image you would like and click Open
Upload the chosen picture or file
Place your cursor where you would like the image on the page
Double click the image or file to place it on the page
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18. Adding Media to Your Wiki
Click Edit This Page
Go to the icon of the TV in the toolbar
Choose the type of object (widget) that you’d like to embed
Follow the instructions for embedding each object
Click Save
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19. Additional Resources for Teachers
Check out our K-12 Educational Community at:
Wikispaces information for teachers:
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