Week One Resources

Page history last edited by Deb Goodrich 4 mos ago

Teaching Tips - How to set up your workspace

Structure

Before your students get to the wiki (and create their own structure) you must create a wiki outline. Here are some tips that we discussed during PBwiki Summer Camp. Click edit to add your own ideas.

Teaching Tips - How to set up your workspace
Great first steps to get students involved
Awesome Wikis:
Quick ideas to integrate into lesson plans

Put clear engagement directions on the front page - what are students doing on the wiki

Determine:

Is your workspace a one stop place for my students to see what is going on in your class and at school?
Is it a resource for them to turn to when they need handouts?
Do you want to use the site for scheduling group meetings, compiling research, and assigning teams?
Is it a place to collaborate with each other?
Is it a combination of collaboration and reference material? (Telannia Norfar, PBWorks Mentor)

Make it clear how students should interact on or with a wiki

Post directions on what a wiki is, and how to use it. The Common Craft video is an excellent resource (The video is located here).
Sandbox - give students a place to experiement and make mistakes.
If you're working with younger students or students new to working in a wiki, create a wiki etiquette page to discuss what is and isn't appropriate.
If you're working with older students, make sure to link to your class materials (handouts, syllabus, etc) from the front page (or even the sidebar). Create clear navigation!
Model expecations with the students in class. See comment below (Telannia Norfar, PBWorks Mentor)
To help students get started and feel comfortable, consider making a template page for them to fill in for their first page. You can build the instructions into the page so they see them as they work.

"I must admit that only a handful of my students caught on to the point of the wiki - that they could add/change information. I did have to instruct them on wiki etiquette, though, so they wouldn't just go and "wipe out" the work someone else had done." Susan Berry, PBworks Mentor 2008

Navigation: How should students find what they are looking for

Tags
Folders
Links from the homepage (or from the side bar)
Class documents all on one page (use a table so students can sort by alphabetical order)

Great first steps to get students involved

1. Students Pages

"I used it to build community by posting everyone's picture on a "Who We Are" page and asking students to contribute brief bios to that page. That worked really well. It helped me learn who my students were and it also helped my students get to know one another. We also used it as a springboard to discussions about online privacy and the nature of the public and private in today's world."Gloria Jacobs

2. Class notes

"Students were assigned to summarize the information discussed in class on a specific day. Other students then commented on, or added links to, the work of their peers. I found that in many cases, even students who are uncomfortable speaking in class are willing to participate in an online environment." Angela Cunningham

3. Study Guides:

"My students also did a nice job in creating study guides for each chapter. It worked better when I developed a series of questions that needed to be addressed rather." Melissa Pearson

4. Question Page

Allow students to post and respond to each other.

5. Homework question

Students can respond to a homework question by placing comments. The question needs to be higher order to make it difficult for plagiarism. Inform them that they know they can not duplicate another person's answer. They can agree with someone else but they must add their own comment as well. Telannia Norfar

6. Post information on the wiki. Next, require students to do one of the following as a "Comment": a) reword a concept into their own words, b) post a question about the posted content, or c) respond to someone else's posting or question. It is a great way to show the types of postings that are expected as well as get students using the wiki. Kristyn K.

Awesome Wikis:

Quick ideas to integrate into lesson plans

Assign groups and have students collaborate by answering a specific set of questions (http://dalylcmr.pbwiki.com/Depression%20Stories)
Book Review - each student reviews the book and comments on each others page
Create a glossary of vocab terms, or class ideas that each student must add to.
Propose a topic and have each student write a three sentence response
Add a google map and ask students to locate the geography of your current lesson (ie: Where were bones from Triceratops located - Denver, CO)
post your vocab list and have studentspost cooresponding images - http://mrtelles.pbwiki.com/WikiSpelling

Comments (19)

Great information :)

Some great ideas here.

Very informative with good expnations necessary for beginners and not just beginners. Thanks!

I have used wikis in my classroom, but am I ever getting some great ideas. Thanks!!!

How do you set the internal links on a page? I vaguely remember some stuff about anchors from some long ago training I did in HTML, but I have forgotten it all from disuse and I didn't notice anything instructional about how this sample page was set up. The lead-in outline is obviously all hyperlinked to other points on the page. How is that done?

You need to name the section that you're pointing to:
<a name="label">Any content</a>
The link syntax to a named anchor:
<a href="#label">Any content</a>

From http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_links.asp
-----------------------------------------------------------------
When editing, you can also set the font's format to Heading 1, 2... and then use Insert Plugin (on the editing toolbar) > PBWorks Magic > Table of Contents to automate a table of contents for you (we'll get into that in a week or so, I believe).

You don't have to use html, just highlight the word you would like to hyperlink, and then chose the world icon at the top. You can link to another PBworks page, folder, file or a URL. :)

Additional comment or query. I noticed that my photo shows up only intermittently when I post or reply to something. Anybody know why it would sometimes appear and sometimes not?

That I can't answer... If you click Help at the top right, you can ask PBWorks support.

Great ideas! There is so much to try. Thanks.

This is a great resource, its nice to have all this in one place.

Hi, I am having a problem opening the second and third link for the websites for the elementary group questions. Is thier something going on?
I would like to finish my homework today. Is it me or is the links for those two sites not working? I even tried copying and pasting them lso for the webinear yesterday. I was posting questions and raised my hand and never saw a respose or new if I could be seen. Help!in the address box.

Thanks
Lashena

I really liked the suggestion on adding a google map. Are we able to actual paste in a map or are we linking to the map?

I appreciate having these resources all together. I am looking forward to being able to refer back to this in the coming school year as I construct and reconstruct my class wiki

I used a wiki for some of my classes last year and had NO idea how to organize the information for method of learning/teaching - I really appreciate the ideas and comments of our experienced practitioners.

Hi Kristine and Mentors,
Could you set the Discussion Board Forum link in the Sidebar to open in a new window? I find I get lost in the Forum and need to open a new tab and type in the web address to get myself back in the wiki. I know I could right click and open in a new tab but I keep forgetting to do that. Thanks :)