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Introduction to Wikis

Terrie Shannon & Helen Mongan-RallisUMD Tech Fest, March 30, 2007

What Are Wikis?• Web pages that can be viewed and changed by anybody

who has a web browser and access to the Internet (likevirtual “bathroom wall”!!)

• Designed to be interactive and collaborative, rather thanstatic pages that are created and controlled by oneperson.

• Can be used asynchronously as a means of enabling twoor more people to collaborate in the creation, editing anddiscussion of the content of the web page.

• Can incorporate text, image, sound and video files (anykind of digital file can be uploaded to a wiki and can thenbe viewed or downloaded by others from the wiki page).

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Examples of Wiki Tools

• Free public wikis:– Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com/)– PeanutButterWiki (http://pbwiki.com/)– WetPaint (http://www.wetpaint.com/)– Seedwiki (http://www.seedwiki.com/)

• UM Wiki: Only for UM students, faculty &Staff(https://wiki.umn.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome)

WikiSpaces

http://www.wikispaces.com/

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PeanutButter Wiki

PeanutButterWiki

WetPaint Wiki

• WetPaint (http://www.wetpaint.com/)

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Seedwiki

• Seedwiki (http://www.seedwiki.com/)

UM Wiki

UM Wiki: (https://wiki.umn.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome)

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Office Hours• Avoids problem of

people having to cometo office to sign up onmy door

• Distance educationstudents can sign up

• Whenever anyone editsmy wiki, I receive anemail, so I know thatsomeone has signed up

• Users use initials onlyto ensure confidentiality

Teaching

• Use in place ofsome course webpages when havingothers contribute tothe pages is of valuee.g. readings &resource list

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Student of Resources• Students used this wiki

to ask questions andshare resources in theiruse of technology forthe class

• Some folks listedsuggestions, othersasked questions whichothers then came in andresponded to within thewiki

Committee Development ofPlan

• Committee members use thewiki to add contributions in thedevelopment of a plan (in thiscase, our dept. DiversityImmersion ExperienceRequirement)

• Contributors list initials so weknow who has contributed ifwe have questions

• At face-to-face meeting, wethen discuss the plan that hasbeen created so far on the wiki

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Using WikiSpaces DiscussionBoard

• WikiSpaces has adiscussion board thataccompanies eachspace

• This enables you to usethe wiki for content, &the board for adiscussion about thecontent

• To link to the discussionon the wiki, click on the“discussion” link

Discussion link

Preparing for Guest Speaker• Prior to having a guest

speaker come to class,using a wiki students postedquestions they wanted thespeaker to answer

• These questions can beshared with the speaker inadvance via the wiki

• Gives students a chance tothink ahead about questionsand to build off each others’questions

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Co-Constructing Knowledge• Students share their

perspective from avariety of sourcesrelated to their fieldof study.

• They post link alongwith annotation

Upload Files e.g. Audio

• Any form of digitalfiles can beuploaded to a wikifor users todownload. E.g.audio files (so youcan podcast fromyour wiki)

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Managing Your WikiSpaceWiki

• See list of all your wikipages

• List & upload files• Import blog entry• Manage templates• Backup your pages• Change page settings• Set members &

permissions• Delete pages

Click on link tomanage your space

http://helens.wikispaces.com/space/about

Setting Account Preferences

• WikiSpaces preferences• Very useful is to set this to send you

an email when wiki is modified

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Viewing Wiki History• Clicking on the “history”

link in a wiki allows youto view all past versionsof the wiki

• If someone has made achange that you don’twant, you can revert toearlier version of thewiki (so nothing can bedestroyed on a wiki as itcan be recovered usingthe history)

History link

Making a New Space (Page)

• In WikiSpaces (as with allwikis), you can easily add apage to your wiki

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Listing of Pages (Spaces) InYour Wiki

• Once you havemore than one page(aka: space) in yourwiki, you can view alist of all of them andlink to them from thislist

Members & PermissionsYou can set

permissions so that:– anyone can view

and edit– Anyone can view,

only members youallow may edit

– Only members mayview & edit (thisoption costs $5 permonth)