Wikis


 * media type="custom" key="5606303" || **Would you like your own wikispace? Wikispaces is still giving away free acccounts to K-12 teachers. They've given away over 294,000 so --don't wait long to sign up. Go to the sign-up page and get yours now. With an educator account, you can create student accounts very easily with no need for students to have email accounts.** ||

Wikis are a great tool for student and teacher collaboration. I have been using wikispaces for several years, but for classroom teachers, PBWorks is a bit easier to use especially for younger students.

So, just what is a wiki? One of the best explanations I have seen can be found at @http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english I would love to have embedded it right here for you to see, but copyright and fair use laws prohibit it. If you are wondering just how to get started or what you can do with a wiki, visit the Teachers First: Wiki Walk-Through You'll find a lot of good information as well as ideas for how to incorporate wikis in specific subject areas. It is provided by TeachersFirst. They have a great wiki with even more information at http://teachersfirst.wikispaces.com/ And here's a list of 50 ways to use wikis for a more collaborative and interactive classroom.

If you have used a wiki with your students, I would love for you to share your projects with us. Here are a couple of examples to take a look at: Nature Guide Home is a wiki created and maintained by a group of 5th graders at Littlewood Elementary School for their environmental center. Students used Edu.glogster in this Environmental Heroes Wiki. And, at this wiki, students at different elementary schools contribute to the ongoing Story 2010.

If you are planning on using a wiki in your elementary class, you might want to consider PBWorks. They have a great user manual. You can create different workspaces for different projects. Each workspace can have several pages organized into folders.