Wikispaces for the Classroom

Why use wikis?

Lesson Summaries Collaboration of Notes Concept Introduction and Exploratory

Projects Dissemination of Important Classroom

Learning Beyond the Classroom Individual Assessment Projects

Advantages of using Wikispaces

Wikis are free to K – 12 educators using the link http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers.

Wikis can be edited from anywhere, anytime Assignments can be submitted anytime Communication can continue outside the

classroom in a safe environment

Your Privileges as a Wiki Organizer

Setting permissions for the whole wiki Managing wiki members Changing the look and feel Locking pages so no one can edit them Deleting or renaming files and pagesCan promote others to organizers as

well

Managing Your Wiki

Look and feelPermissionsInviting peoplePages

Click on “Manage Wiki”

Setting Look and Feel

Set the colors and theme of your wiki

Upload a custom logo

Choose theme and color

Managing Permissions

Decide who can view or edit your wiki

Manage permissions for individual wiki pages

Under “People” click on “Permissions”

“Private” is the suggested setting

Specific Permissions

Inviting Members (with email)

Go to Manage Wiki > Invite People to send an invitation email to the folks who will be collaborating in your wiki. Just type in up to 100 email addresses or Wikispaces usernames, separated by commas or line breaks, and hit Send.

Inviting Members (w/o email)

If you are a teacher and need to add a whole class’ worth of student accounts, you can do it all at once by going to Manage Wiki > User Creator. You will be able to make accounts for all of your students, even if they don’t have email addresses.

Keep in mind that every Wikispaces username must be unique. Try using numbers, or initials, or a first name-last name combination to create unique usernames.

Where? In Manage Wiki

Select Your Options to Invite People

Look in Tools: Set Notifications

If click on Changes Tab,

Your main page is set up. Now what?

Think about the pages and links you’d like on your homepage.

What will students use the most?What do they need easy access to?What is the purpose of the page, and

how can you divide it to make administration easier?

Add a Page

To add a page, click on New Page in the toolbar.

Give the page a title

Set Page Name, then click Create

Step 1

Step 2

To Put Links on Homepage

Go to bottom of toolbar and click on “Edit Navigation”

These should be links that would be used often

Edit Bar Appears

Add links to body of page, just below “Include Page List

Type name of webpage, highlight, and click “link”

Step 1

Step 2

Editing Your Page

Once you’ve set up your page, you can add:

TextLinks within textDocumentsVideoWidgets

Text

Click on the “Edit” tab at the top of the page, and this box will appear

Type as you would in Word

FontChanges Lists

You can always preview your changes and cancel or save

Links

To insert links, highlight text Click on Edit, and the Link icon Type the address in the External Link tab Then Click Add Link

Documents

In the edit tab, click on fileType the name of the file you want to

upload. It will show up on the screen. Then embed. OR

Consider using Slideshare to save documents and slideshows. Use embed code to add.

Insert File

Slideshare

Set up an free account at Slideshare.netUpload any of your documents or

PowerPoint presentations.Slideshare will save them under your

account, and give you an embed code.Caution: They will be available to the

public.

Advantages

Students can review presentations and information

Students have access to documents at home

Adding Video

From various sources: TeacherTube, Youtube, Youtube.edu, Google

The embed code is located beneath or to the right of the video.

Copy it.

Find Embed Code and Copy

To Insert Video: Click on Edit, Widgets. This box will appear. Click on Video.

Specify the original location of the video by clicking on box.

Paste the embed code (this will place video on your webpage) and save

Paste code here

Other Widgets: Embedding GoogleDocs Forms

Begin by Creating a Form in GoogleDocs

Great for online assignments, surveysGo to docs.google.com and click on

Create FormOnce finished, you have the option of

getting an imbed codeClick on Form, Imbed Form on webpageA box appears with a codeCopy the code

Embed Code

Add the widget

• Click on Edit, Widget

• Click on Other html

• Paste code in box

The form will appear on the wiki

Students can answer questions online.All data entered in the form will go into a

spreadsheet in GoogleDocs, viewable by you.

Another suggested form: AnswerGarden (great for surveys; answers presented in Word Clouds) http://bottspot.wikispaces.com/