Wikispaces

The resource for today is called Wikispaces.

What is Wikispaces?

Wikispaces is a large space on the Internet where you can share work and ideas, pictures, links, videos, media, and all sorts of other things. You can also embed files, HTML, links, videos, and other media, making it a versatile tool for the classroom environment. Wikispaces also encourages collaboration between groups as each member of the wiki can edit and share files. 

Is it free?

Wikispaces is free for anyone to create, BUT in order to make it public, you have to verify the wikispace by a code or paying $1.00. In order to have a Schools & District Private Label wikispaces, the price is $1,000 a year for 100 users. The same is true of Higher Education Private Label wikispaces, as well.

What will Wikispaces bring to your classroom?

This product can prove to be beneficial in all different grades throughout the education system. From using it in the 1st grade classroom to write acrostic poems across the classroom to using it in 9th Grade classrooms to embed photos of a Wordle about the American Revolution, to a college student embedding YouTube videos of their time spent doing a psychology study. This tool brings an easier way to create a local place to store and share information across many different curriculum areas.

How do I use Wikispaces?

Below, these are some of the features of Wikispaces.

This is the homepage when you first log in to your Wikispace. You can see the home, project, recent changes, pages & files, members, and manage wiki tabs. Each one has it's own job that I will detail below. Also, to the right, you see the "ALL PAGES" box, which is all the different pages of my specific wiki for a course I am enrolled in during this Fall 2012 Semester.

Here's the pages & files tab. It details the different pages as well as when things were created. You can also add a new page or upload a page. You can ALSO add a tag to each page, which then groups pages and gets you to the right resource based upon a specific word.

This is the member page. You can send out membership requests via e-mail, which will show up here. This is the great thing about a Wiki - you can add and delete who you want to be on the spaces.

The last feature I want to share is the Wiki Permissions page. This is IMPORTANT in the areas of who can view and edit your Wikispace page. This is where the verification code comes into play. In order to have a protected or public page, you have to verify your account by either applying for an education page OR pay $1.00 to verify. Or, you can even have a phone call with a code sent to you so you can verify. Since I was verified, I changed my Wikispace to protected where everyone can view, but no one except for the members can edit my page.


Here are the example pages I currently have set up on my Wikispace. The first page is my Technology Resources (which shows how links are embedded), Web Page Evaluation (which was a project I had to create, showing how a document can be embedded), and Wordle assignment (showing how to embed a picture):

------------------------------------------------------------------------

How can I use Wikispaces in my classroom?

Below is a list of ways that this tool can be utilized in the classroom:

-Write up book reviews to share with other students
-Classroom newspapers for students and parents to see
-Embed a Wordle on oneself to allow others to 'get to know' you
-Create an ABC book about a centralized topic with a page for each letter
-Class debate where students post their feelings about candidates or topics
-Create class encyclopedias on the different topics presented in a classroom
-Provide a links collection where you store student-friendly and SAFE links
-Set up virtual field-trips to have students research & create pages on each place
-What I'm really good at pages for students to discuss and let others know of themselves
-Create a class "books read" page for students to see different books that have been read
-Recipe books for students to share recipes for different holidays or from different countries
-Community nature guides where students share about the plants and animals in the community
-Create a timeline wiki page for the events during a famous war (WWI, WWII, Korean War, etc)
-Create fan clubs on famous people where students work together to add information about each person
-Multi-author stories where students contribute to each other's stories, taking them in different directions

Honestly, the possibilities are ENDLESS.

How would YOU use Wikispaces in your classroom? Answer in the comments on this post!