Teaching With Technology & Educational Wikis
Using New Classroom Technology, Students Work Together on a Website
Aug 25, 2009
Teaching with technology by creating educational wikis is an ideal way for teachers to use new classroom technology. Students colaborate, learn, and share in communal learning with other students in the class and classrooms around the world. Basically, a wiki is the simplest, non-technical way of designing a website. Wikis differ from traditional websites though, in that anyone can upload new content or edit existing content. More and more teachers are discovering just how ideal wikispaces can be for posting collaborative projects and research in a classroom curriculum.
How to Start Teaching With Technology in an Educational Wiki
There are many sites that offer free web space to create educational wikis. Perhaps the best option is Wikispaces.com. According to the site, Wikispaces has given away over 175,000 free wikis for educational use.
Create a Educational Wiki Account on Wikispaces.com
All teachers have to do is take five minutes to sign up for their classroom's free account. Wikispaces.com has several templates to choose from. When members log on for the first time, they’ll find their wikispace all set up. The only thing left to do is start typing and uploading.
To get started, a teacher can visit Wikispaces.com and click on the link which reads, “Create your own classroom wiki today.”
The next page asks for a site name between three and 32 characters long. Students involved with the wiki may want to share input on this decision before an instructor goes to create the site.
Teachers will need to choose between several security options for their classroom's educational wiki. A public site can be viewed and edited by anyone on the net. A protected wiki can be viewed by anyone, but only edited by members. And a private site, which most teachers will want to opt for, can be viewed and edited only by members.
Uploading to an Educational Wiki With Classroom Technology
When updating an educational wiki , students don’t have to worry about making a mistake. One handy feature wikispaces offers is a roll back option. This means that each time an update is saved, a copy of the site as it looked beforehand is also saved. Members can roll back the site to reflect content from minutes, hours, or days earlier.
Wikispaces has tutorials and videos to help new users learn how to add content, but to ensure teachers just how easy updating a wiki can be, here are the basic steps for uploading content to wikispaces. Other sites may differ slightly.
Uploading Text to Educational Wikis With Classroom Technology
To upload new text, a student first clicks on the edit button. A tool bar appears at the top of the screen and a student can type and format just as if he were using Microsoft Word.
Uploading Pictures to the educational Wiki With Classroom Technology
To upload pictures, a student will again click on the edit button and then on a picture icon. Wikispaces then prompts the user to upload pictures from their computer. After this, the pictures appear in a bin. A student selects a photo to place on the page, captions it, and finally adjusts any sizing or formatting by following clear directions.
Uploading Video to Educational Wikis With Classroom Technology
To upload video, a student clicks on edit and then on the video icon. They are then offered several options for where the video is located such as Google, You Tube, or Teacher Tube. Once this is selected, students find the video they want to upload, click on embed, and then copy and paste the code to wikispaces.
Teachers can check out related articles covering creative ideas for wikispaces in the classroom curriculum, tips for making polished wikis, and more fun ideas for classroom technology integration such as student blogs, and audio or video podcasts.
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