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What's a wiki?
Here is a youtube clip that is entertaining and informative to show colleagues and students about wikis:

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Wiki evolution process
An example of how the use of a wiki may evolve in a classroom:
 * 1) One-way information tool - teacher uses wiki as a website to give out information
 * 2) Two-way information tool - students add content to wiki such as expanding vocabulary lists, technical terms and notes.
 * 3) Drafting process - a vicarious tool: student creates a page in the wiki and uses it to draft work. Restricted access editing rights to page (student and teacher only). Teacher can review and feedback at any time. Other students can also view and benefit from feedback.
 * 4) Collaboration tool - students work together in groups to draft, review and discuss topics. All students can access and edit the page(s).

Some examples of all four processes can be found in a live wiki classroom used by the Year 12 and 13 ITGS students at Bangkok Patana School:
 * http://ict-patana.wikispaces.com/


 * Basic information about wikis and education: http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/

Free Wikis for Educators
Wikispace allows free space with no adverstising for educational purposes. http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers100K

Quick Start
When showing colleagues and students how to use wikispaces, here is a check list of the most common/basic functions to run through:


 * Using the text editor: http://www.wikispaces.com/wikitext to add content and learn the basic formatting tools
 * use the colour scheme for your space
 * invite people to join your space
 * add and deleted pages in your wikispace
 * make links pages within wikispace
 * make external links
 * headings and table of contents
 * embedding documents (pdf, word documents)
 * adding non-text content such as images and videos (from Youtube)

Strengths of Wikis
//A message from Dennis Harter from ISB//: I will not be at the ISTEC meeting, but I am happy to share information about the wiki use at school and what I see are the benefits. We are not necessarily high end users here, but we do use it in a fair number of places and with excellent success.  Here are the strengths I see with wikis:  
 * Collaboration at its best – teachers, students, administration, or whomever you wish can collaborate on the same document while retaining a history of all previous versions (that is huge, by the way). It is worth noting that they can’t collaborate at the same time on the same page, which might affect teachers’ use of it in class with students on laptops for example.
 * Accessibility control – because you can set passwords and access, teachers often can start using a wiki as a one way communication tool, sharing information, links and assignments, but after a while, they start to see the benefits of student collaboration and contribution in this venue. So by adjusting permissions, now teachers can expand content control to students as well and then you see students building upon and sharing content knowledge in a central location. Awesome.
 * The history feature – as I said before, this is huge. Teachers have a hard time “letting go” of control of documents for fear of student misuse, intentional or otherwise. “What if they delete everything?” or “What if it gets inappropriate?” are common questions. With history and user logins this “worry” goes out the window. Teachers love that.
 * Be sure to show Wetpaint also. I am a wikispaces user myself, but Wetpaint offers more layout and design options, which many teachers and students like. Good user interface and they are willing to go ad free for education, which is also nice. (Wikispaces will do this too).
 * A terrific set of Web 2.0 skills are learned simply in the process of using a wiki - Creating and managing accounts, editing in a text box, making links, inserting pictures, uploading files, embedding code. These are all great skills that are learned as a by-product of working with wikis. Great for teacher PD and student technology learning.
 * Finally, and perhaps most importantly, wikis provide students and teachers with the potential for worldwide collaboration and communication. Relationships with other students and schools can be fostered using a wiki and discussion and collective, global problem solving can be attempted. This is an important part of the necessary skill set of a 21st Century Learner and any opportunity that lends itself to this kind of learning and interaction is more than just a positive experience. It becomes a necessary one.

Guide to Setting up a wiki
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