Wikispaces - So Far, So Good...So Far
I am just learning wikispaces this year in my computer lab. I successfully created wikispaces for each grade-level team, for each grade level student spaces, one for book reviews, and a few others for special area plans. Wikispaces was great about questions and entering twelve classes of username/passwords for me. With so many students, Excel came in handy for name + automatic number combination. I then copy/pasted the lists to send.
Project logistics-
With six classes in each grade level (I'll begin with 4th-5th) I will group students by their number in class to partner/group wikispaces. Also - I'm hoping it's great for distance collaborations too. Kind of like in here - there is something new each time I check in this site... well at least in my mind that is how they will see it. I have read accounts that students get upset over ownership - but that is part of teamwork in "regular" class too. More life lessons.
With daily contact with teachers at my school and online, we have many topics/standards-based projects in mind - it will all depend on what they are doing when we actually begin. I am planning for 4th graders to be ready for On the Trail of the First PeopleURL: http://eev.liu.edu/KK/na/index.htm with Karen.
Safety-
Wikispaces is safe because school account options can be set to members/invitaion only and I have requested that students share their username/password with parents only - this way parents who have reservations feel safer too.
I'm talking/emailing/blogging/newsletter(ing) home about it before we begin so I can field questions/concerns. I have had good discussions with parents which helps me add to my information I send.
Reading AUP's in CR20 has also been very helpful.
The blocking problem-
The past two months I have made numerous requests of our tech department to unblock sites I need/want such as wikispaces, blogger, podomatic..... Each request listed multiple ways I plan to use the site such as integrating technology and other curriculum, staff development, team collaboration/communicaton, and/or teacher/parent communication. So far, so good.
I've been teaching 20++ years, and in this is my 4th year in this position. I still want to ask:
What other organizational - or other - advice is there out there?
Project logistics-
With six classes in each grade level (I'll begin with 4th-5th) I will group students by their number in class to partner/group wikispaces. Also - I'm hoping it's great for distance collaborations too. Kind of like in here - there is something new each time I check in this site... well at least in my mind that is how they will see it. I have read accounts that students get upset over ownership - but that is part of teamwork in "regular" class too. More life lessons.
With daily contact with teachers at my school and online, we have many topics/standards-based projects in mind - it will all depend on what they are doing when we actually begin. I am planning for 4th graders to be ready for On the Trail of the First PeopleURL: http://eev.liu.edu/KK/na/index.htm with Karen.
Safety-
Wikispaces is safe because school account options can be set to members/invitaion only and I have requested that students share their username/password with parents only - this way parents who have reservations feel safer too.
I'm talking/emailing/blogging/newsletter(ing) home about it before we begin so I can field questions/concerns. I have had good discussions with parents which helps me add to my information I send.
Reading AUP's in CR20 has also been very helpful.
The blocking problem-
The past two months I have made numerous requests of our tech department to unblock sites I need/want such as wikispaces, blogger, podomatic..... Each request listed multiple ways I plan to use the site such as integrating technology and other curriculum, staff development, team collaboration/communicaton, and/or teacher/parent communication. So far, so good.
I've been teaching 20++ years, and in this is my 4th year in this position. I still want to ask:
What other organizational - or other - advice is there out there?
Tags: aup, collaborative, elementary, inter-classroom, socialstudies, wikis
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by JoNelle on
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Thank you for these ideas - I'll share them with my teachers. I tried more that one student on a page, but it did not work for us. They each have own page and can add comments on the discussion tabs. I want to get to the part of them asking/answering questions as you have - really like that aspect.
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Permalink Reply by Sandra Carswell on
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Robyn, I would like to share your wiki with teachers the last week of July. Would that be possible?
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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on
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I wonder about using Diigo in the classroom. It doesn't seem to get blocked by my institution, which blocks almost everything in sight, but I can't seem to find a wiki aspect to Diigo. Diigo is simply amazing for research and sharing that research, commenting on the pages you save from the web. No ads to speak of.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Cruthers on
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Permalink Reply by Colleen Young on
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How do I get this to open in a new window? Any ideas? I love Wikispaces and my class are very impressed.
Links are no problem in a new window but something like this from Wordle (the html to embed is provided on th Wordle site) when embeded seem to open in the same window as it does here.
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Permalink Reply by Ruth Sheffer on
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Aha I have figured this out .You have to do add a widget and then you paste this text in:
link name
where you fill in the name of the site you want to open and the name of the link you want to appear on your wiki.
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Thank you for the reply but I think I am being dim - I don't understand how your link helps me!
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you paste the link and in the places I said you write the name of the site that you want to open, and in the second one the name of the website and it will open it in a different window.
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or maybe I misunderstood your question?? :-(
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I don't understand because your link above takes me to a website so I am not sure what you mean by 'the places'
Maybe we are talking about different things!
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no I mean where it says "the places" you insert the name of the site you want.
a href="http://www.nameofsite.com"target="_blank">link name where nameofsite you insert the name of the website you want and "link name" you insert the name you want to appear as the link name.I see above my text was converted to a link .that was unintentional .You will have to insert < and > and the end of the above text.I removed it now to prevent if rom automatically being posted as a link...
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Thank you Ruth
I have successfully used the "target = " _blank" before but don't know how it works with the kind of html code you get from say Wordle. -
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