This document provides an overview of wikis and how they can be used with students. It discusses what a wiki is, how wikis work, and how teachers can use wikis with their students. Specifically, it suggests that wikis can provide students with a new format for writing, allow for peer editing and feedback, help teachers create collaborative projects, and share resources. It also addresses common questions about wiki safety and provides examples of how wikis have been used successfully in classrooms.

1. Presented by Susan Hef ley

2.  Wikis  Also:
 What is a Wiki?  Turning papers
 How can you
in to student
use a wiki with folders rather
your students? than printing
them.
 How do wikis
work?
 Wiki FAQ

3. No one likes to take a stack of Currently at Dassa
papers home to grade each McKinney, students must
night. Their hand writing save to their own
is hard to read, it is a lot of folders, but YOU have
writing for you, etc. Have access to their folders and
you ever thought of using can go in and OPEN that
the computer to help you? file, you can even make
There is a way to have comments (Microsoft
students electronically Office only) and re-
submit their papers and save, for the student to
projects and for you to look at later. This might
review them. work best for that in
between sloppy copy to
final draft step.

4. How to Review
Microsoft Word or
Microsoft
PowerPoint files
This movie will show
you how to:
1. Open a student’s
Adobe Captive Movie folder
How to use the Review tab in 2. Track changes to
Microsoft Office their document
3. Add comments
to their
document or
power point.

5. Wikis
• What is a wiki
– Learn more by watching this video
• What is wikipedia? Plus more about
the wiki world.
• Basically….a collaborative website
• How are wikis used?
– Collaboration
– Large Projects
– Online Presentations
– Organization of knowledge and input

6. • Provide students with a new format for free writing
• Offer students a new approach for peer editing and peer responses
• Give teachers a forum to create collaborative projects
• Share resources with students
• Create a portfolio of work for each student or class
• Create a class project
• Support service learning projects
Is a wiki safe for my students?
Wikis, like any online product, do have their risks, but with careful
planning and purposeful teaching, many of these can be eliminated
or negated. Most importantly caution and prohibit students from
giving out any personal information on the Internet.

7. What you tell What you tell
students: parents:
 Do not put any personal  Student’s personal
information on this page information is not posted
(last name, school on this website
name, teacher’s name, e-  Projects are designed to
mail address, home provide students with
address, etc.) practice for their writing
 Students using wikis are skills and to improve their
expected to treat the wiki computer and Internet
as a classroom space. skills in a collaborative
Speech that is manner
inappropriate for class is
not appropriate for your
wiki.

8. There are two major sites that offer wikis to teachers:
Wikispaces and PBworks.
Both offer similar features, but there are slight differences
(click here to learn the differences).
Click on the links below to see similar sites at
bothWikispaces and PBWorks. Feel free to poke
around, press the edit button and get a feel for the site.
WikiSpaces
PBWorks

9.  Greenville, PA 5th grade class: REALLY well thought
out wiki for use with current, former and future 5th
graders.
 Individual Teacher’s Wiki (used as a simple webpage)
 Arbor Heights Elementary: an impressive use of a wiki
to create a district page.
 Spanish class with student created pages.

10. Choose which you want.
Both have the same basic steps.
WikiSpaces
PBWorks

11.  Go to www.PBWorks.com
 Click on Get Started
 Choose Educational, then click on Try It NOW, you will also need to
select a free account
 Enter your e-mail address and create a password on the next screen.
 Choose what you want the space to be called, choose something short
and sweet. You will have to type this in and remember it often.
 With the pull down menu choose that this wiki is for education.
 Press NEXT.

12.  Check your e-mail. Follow the link in
that e-mail.
1. Choose your
access levels.
2. Accept the terms
of service.
3. Press TAKE ME
TO MY
WORKSPACE!
Is your wiki going to be public? This means that ANYONE can edit it, we
suggest this option so that students may make edits. Private wikis are
accessed by logging in to the site. You can also edit the access policy
of each page later.

13. If you want check out some of the GREAT
resources you will find on your new front page.
There are some especially good short videos
that you might want to check out.
Beware: You will delete all of this great stuff in
just a minute, so if you want to check it out, do
it NOW!
(or at least copy it to somewhere else or bookmark
the links!)

14. Ready to Edit?
Click on EDIT PAGE. Highlight the text on the page and delete it to start
fresh.

15. Hint: If you want, some find it easier to type their
text in Microsoft Word and copy and paste into
this editor (this will not work for images). You
can simply use the editor provided as well.

16. PBWorks: Editing the Page
Step 4: Just start typing (or copy and paste)
your page. Use the EDITOR to help make
the text bold, italic or underlined or to change
its size.
PRESS SAVE WHEN YOU ARE DONE!

17. You can do almost anything with a
PBWorkspace that you can do with a
traditional website. Here are some basics
you might want to try:
 Adding an Image
 Creating a New Page
 Linking to the New Page
 Linking to a Different Website
 Manage Your PBWorkspace
Finished learning about the
Extras? What to do next?
Click to go back to the beginning.

18. 1. Make sure that you have the image
you want to use saved somewhere on
your computer.
2. Click on EDIT so that you can
change the page.
3. On the right you will see a box
labeled INSERT LINKS (under Page
Tools). In that box, click on IMAGES
AND FILES.
4. Click on Upload File
5. Browse your computer to find the
file of the picture you want to insert.
6. You file will appear in the Images
and Files box, click on it.
7. You can edit your picture (change
the size or orientation) by clicking on
the edges and dragging it.

19. 1. Save the page you were working on.
2. In the top right corner click on: CREATE
A PAGE.
3. Type the name for your new page, try to
keep it short and avoid spaces.
4. Choose if you want a template and what
kind.
5. Press create.
6. You have a new page, edit and save as
you did for your main wiki page.
Hint: You may want to go back and link to this page from
your main Wiki Page! See this slide.

20. * These directions will help you link to a page that you
created within your wiki. To link to an outside
website see this slide.
1. Open the page you want to link FROM by clicking Edit this Page.
2. Type the text you want to link.
3. Highlight this text.
4. On the EDITOR bar click on the Insert Hyperlink button (the globe button
with the chains).
5. Go to the next slide.

21. 6. The link type is a
PBWorks Page.
7. In the drop down menu
link to the wikipage of your
choice.
8. Press OK.
9. Done.

22. * These directions will help you link to a page on the
world wide web that is outside your PBWorkspace.
To link to a page that you created within your wiki
see this slide.
1. Open the page you want to link FROM by clicking Edit this Page.
2. Type the text you want to link.
3. Highlight this text.
4. On the EDITOR bar click on the Insert Hyperlink button (the globe button
with the chains).
5. Go to the next slide.

23. 6. Link Type is URL.
7. Type in the web address
underneath the word URL,
including the www part.
8. Press OK.
9. DONE.

24.  By clicking on Settings in the top right corner you can
customize your site in many ways.
 Change the look and feel of the site by clicking on Colors
 View the Access Controls
 Here you have control over whether your site is public or private, and
most importantly users of your site and their roles in addition to
managing notifications and RSS feeds
 To allow/teach students to edit the page, simply give them the
directions you have learned here and the address to your page
(remember in Step 1 you chose the Site Name? The site address is
that name +PBWorks.com. For example the Site Name of our site
is Chrisrobin01 so the address is Chrisrobin01.PBWorks.com)
 NOTE: All future editors of the site will need to be invited via e-mail
OR be given a user name and password you set up through classroom
accounts.
 Learn even more…..HERE.

25. WikiSpaces PBWorks
 Students are not required to log-  Requires students to log-in to edit
in, but the changes are not tracked page, they DO NOT NEED an e-mail
by student. There is no way to keep address to edit the page. This allows
it private without log-in. the changes to be tracked by student.
 Log-in requires an e-mail address. (More…)
 No comment field, but an entire  No discussion feature currently, but
discussion page is associated with you can add comments at the bottom
the wiki. of every page.
 Basic text editing includes  More text editing features that appear
size, bold, italic and underline but more like Microsoft Word.
little else.  Many widgets/plugins including
 Slowly adding widgets including YouTube and ANY Google Gadget.
many well known partnerships.  Ability to see, compare AND revert to
 Ability to see AND revert to old old versions of all pages under page
versions of all pages under history. history.
 Although there are some features
 Many features are limited to
premium memberships. limited to premium
memberships, these are offered at
 Ads by Google on the side. discounted or NO cost to K-12
educators.
 No ads.
BACK TO LAST SLIDE

26.  You tell PBWorks how many accounts you need.
 You match student names (optional) with their role on
the wiki, their username and their password.
 You can manage student use, see when they last
logged-in, change their role if needed but once the
account is set up. YOU cannot change their user-name
or password. It is suggested that you record these
somewhere safe.
BACK TO LAST SLIDE

27. You know the basics of HOW to create a wiki. Now go to the
wiki you created and PLAY WITH IT. Create something
that you AND your students can really use!
Think about what you want to do with the site:
 Do you want a basic class website?
 Do you want an interactive class website? If so, how will
you make it interactive?
 Allow and require comments at the bottom of YOUR pages.
Use it as a spring board to other interactive websites…..
 Give students their own page(s) that they must write. You can
even comment on their pages OR require them to comment
on others.
 What else?

28.  Cunningham, Ward. "What is Wiki." Wiki.org. 27
June 2002. 12 Feb 2008
<http://www.wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki>.