Wikispaces

= = =Wikispaces= = = =Overview=

Wikispaces was created in 2005 by Tangient LLC, a company dedicated to providing the best experience to wiki users. The designers of Wikispaces view it as a personal website with an edit button. Wikispaces is a free tool for educators to use in their classroom, as well as for corporations and institutions in the business world. Since one of the main goals of Wikispaces is to provide an easy tool to educators, there are several options for teachers and districts. Users can choose to set up their own free wiki, or schools and districts can purchase Wikispaces Private Label to get the complete package of tools and options. The creator of a Wikispace page acts as the administrator for that page and can create a space that is as private or open as needed for the setting. Watch the quick video belong to see the ease in creating a wiki through Wikispaces. More Wikispaces history can be found [|here].

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=Ideas for Classroom Use= Wikispaces has a wide variety of uses in the educational setting. Apart from the obvious collaboration features, many users create sites as webpages both from themselves and for their students. Below are some specific example of how teachers are using them with their students:
 * **Collaborative Websites (multi-author)**- Some teachers/schools use wikispaces sites as classroom web pages. Their ease of use and ability to create alerts makes them ideal for students and parents.
 *  St. John Lutheran School Wiki Site-- The grade level pages, identified on the left hand navigation bar, are used by the technology coordinator as a homepage for all of his technology classes. Links to activity directions, rubrics, instructional videos, student resources, and assignments are all posted for students and parents.
 *  The monster project wiki is a new twist on an old activity. This activity traditionally is used to teach students how to write good directions. A student will draw a picture of a monster, then they will write directions for HOW to draw it. Those directions are given to another student and they must try to draw the monster using the directions from the other students. Normally, this activity is done across classrooms, but is now done across the country or around the world. The wiki is an ideal space for having multiple authors edit a page and contribute to a space.

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 * **Collaborative Work space**- When students can not share the same physical space, the wiki page serves as a virtual work space for student projects.
 *  This link is to a project site created for students to use on a collaborative project. Students got to know one another in Edmodo, chose groups and worked together to create a 21st century retelling of some of the "Kingdom Parables" from Matthew. In this case, students were able to use the discussion boards on each page as a way to share ideas. The wiki page is flexible enough that it allows for students to add content widgets from other web sites and services.
 * **Online Digital Porfolios**- Because educational Wikispaces sites are free to teachers, students can use pages as cumulative portfolios of online work. Students can upload work examples, embed objects from other sites, and link to other student created content from various places on the web. Examples of E-portfolios using the Wikispaces platform
 * http://mslew.wikispaces.com/Portfolios+2011-12
 * http://cwojtera.wikispaces.com/Student+pgs+10-11