Using Wikis For Work & Play…

…A brief Introduction to thewonderful world of wikis!

What Some People Are Saying About Wikis:

A wiki is a kind of website that can be written collaboratively by a community of users. Any user of the website can change, add, or delete content, or even completely change the information on the website.

Ward Cunningham and Bo Leuf describe the essence of the Wiki like this:

“A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.”

–The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web

What do you think?

These are some websites you can use to make your own (free!) Wiki:

Wikidot.comPbwiki.com Google Spaces

Wikispaces.com

… and so many more! Just browse the web to find more wiki-hosting sites.

Here’s some log-in information to access our very own class wiki:

http://hawkslis.wikispaces.com

Below the “hawk” icon, you’ll see a list called “Navigation.” Click on the link that says “Literacy-and-Learning” to see our class wiki.

At the top of the Literacy-and-Learning page, you’ll see an option to

“Edit This Page.” You can add text, photos, videos, music, links, whatever!

Just click “Save” when you’re ready to save your edit.

What do you want to put on our class wiki?

You can also click on the “history” tab to see past versions of the page. (“Discussion” and “notify me” will only work if you’re a registered user.)

When you get more comfortable with the wiki, you can go to “Actions” (below the hawk) to make a new wiki page or “Manage Wiki” to change the layout and color.

Check out these ways some people are using wikis:

Family Search for GENEOLOGY research: wiki.familysearch.org

KnitWiki for KNITTERS: www.knitting-and.com/wiki/

Teacher-Librarian Wiki for LIBRARIANS: teacherlibrarianwiki.pbwiki.com

Molecular Station for MOLECULAR BIOLOGISTS: www.molecularstation.com/wiki/

Westwood Wiki for Westwood High School CLASSROOMS: westwood.wikispaces.com

Wikipedia for ENCYCLOPEDIA USERS: wikipedia.org

Wikiality: The Truthiness Encyclopedia for FANS of the Colbert Report: wikiality.com

How are you going to use your wiki?