Wiki+Spaces



=What is Wiki Spaces? =

WikiSpaces is a website that gives users a place to work collaboratively. They can be set to private so that only members can view the wiki or as public so that anyone can view it. WikiSpaces is free to educators and takes only moments to sign up. Setting up a classroom wiki is very simple and takes less than one hour to create five wikis with 150 students (I know because I have 5 classroom wikis set up). WikiSpaces provides a way for users to work collaboratively on a document independent of time and location. It is free, very simple to use, provides multiple instructional videos, and has security settings for children.

=media type="youtube" key="1pR5yogCmkA" height="315" width="420" align="right"How can WikiSpaces be used in a classroom? =

Teachers can use wiki spaces for a number of things. First of all, teachers can create a class webpage to upload files and other resources securely to the students. Next, students can work collaboratively on documents to share knowledge and produce awesome presentations. Personally, I use my classroom wikis for students to write their lab reports. Each group of students are responsible for one part of the lab report- purpose/hypothesis, background information, directions/procedures, data collection, data analysis, results, conclusions, and future work. By doing this, my students take less time to complete a lab report and they are really able to focus on one section to gain a deeper understanding on what that section means. To the right is a video on how other educators use wikis in their classroom. (CorwinPress, 2009)

As stated in the Chapter 4 introduction, when students have an audience for their work, the quality of their writing significantly increases. The National Educational Technology Plan actually suggests that teachers incorporate wikis into their classrooms: “// Group learning especially is enhanced by social and participatory approaches, such as wikis, in which learners and teachers regardless of their location or the time of day can build knowledge structures or tackle inquiry problems that are posed together // .” (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) Teachers can use WikiSpaces at any grade level or content area for students to work collaboratively on a project independent of time and location.

=Advantages & Disadvantages =

Advantages
 * Free for educators
 * Provides multiple privacy settings for security
 * Provides an easy way for teachers to see individual contributions
 * Students can collaborate independent of time and location
 * Automatically saves work & has the ability to revert to a previous version (great for children!)

Disadvantages
 * Multiple users cannot edit the same page at the same time (unlike Google Documents)
 * Takes a significant amount of classroom instruction to make students proficient in using WikiSpaces

=How can teachers hold individual students accountable? =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">WikiSpaces provides an easy way for teachers to assess student learning and participation. Within the “Manage Wiki” tab, all of the members of the wiki (including the teacher) can view all of the edits that individual members have done, what those edits were, the frequency and date of edits, and chart the participation over time. Below are a few screen clippings of stats of this wiki. The first picture is the number of edits that each member of the wiki has done since January. The second picture is of data on the views, edits, and comments over time of this wiki. The last image is some of my individual edits- the green highlight shows material added (red highlighting shows material deleted but I didn’t delete any material there).

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Navigation =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Proceed to Chapter 4 Conclusions.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Chapter 4 Introduction || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Bubbl.us || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Collaborize Classroom  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">CrocoDoc  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Edmodo  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Google Documents  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">KidBlog  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Skype  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">VoiceThread  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">WikiSpaces  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Chapter 4 Conclusions ||

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">References =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">CorwinPress. (2009, June 12). //Using Wikis in the Classroom.// Retrieved March 18, 2012, from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pR5yogCmkA

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Open clip art// (2011). Thumbs [picture]. Retrieved from Open clip art, @http://openclipart.org/

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">U.S. Department of Education. (2010). //National Educational Technology Plan 2010//. Retrieved February 13, 2012, from U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010.pdf

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//WikiSpaces Logo//. (2012, January 28). Retrieved January 28, 2012, from Minnesota Sate University Moorhead: http://appserv.mnstate.edu/instrtech/its/main.php?id=1&menu=1&show=web20&page=tut4

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">WikiSpaces. (2012, March 18). //2012 Data Summary (image).// Retrieved March 18, 2012, from WikiSpaces: http://designing21centurylearning.wikispaces.com/space/stats/user?wikispacesFormToken=8297c8e24dbd23c5222c6aff88c5a50a03547954&date=2012&go=1

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">WikiSpaces. (2012, March 18). //Recent Changes by Member (image).// Retrieved March 18, 2012, from WikiSpaces: http://designing21centurylearning.wikispaces.com/wiki/changes?wikispacesFormToken=52d552bb6353c9e2b61ee996c1375ba947b32f04&showPage=1&showMsg=1&showComment=1&showFile=1&showTag=1&showUser=1&quser=SheriStarks&userdatefrom=02%2F17%2F2012&userdateto=03%2F18%

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">WikiSpaces. (2012, March 18). //Usage Statistics Data (image).// Retrieved March 18, 2012, from WikiSpaces: http://designing21centurylearning.wikispaces.com/space/stats/overview