Wikis:  The Next Great Tool

 http://newtools.pbwiki.com/Wikis

from David S. Jakes wiki

Learning With Wikis wiki.doc

Jon Orech

English Teacher/ Curricular Technology Consultant

Downers Grove South High School

Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/

From the website: Wikipedia (pronounced /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdi.ə/ or /ˌwiki-/) is a multilingual Web-based free-content encyclopedia wiki service. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles to be changed by anyone with access to a web browser. The project began on January 15, 2001, as a complement to the expert-written Nupedia and is now operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia has more than 3,380,000 articles, including more than 993,000 in the English-language version.

Wikis in Plain English from Common Craft

Wiki resources and examples:

http://del.icio.us/cchausis/wiki

David Warlick's Learning Wiki:

http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php

Ideas from Jennifer Wagner (aka Technospud)

A wiki might be perfect for you if ...

- You're tired of waiting for IT to help set you up

- You want to increase student engagement using a safe online wiki

- You're tired of complicated solutions that nobody uses

- You want a no-hassle way to showcase your students' work online

- You want to eliminate excuses of lost homework

- You want a central place for your group to collaborate

- You want one place to put your files and thoughts so you can access them anywhere

- You want a partner to share best practices on collaboration

5 Tips for Wiki Work -- (adapted from Vicki Davis, author of the Flat Classroom Project)

1. Refresh Before Writing -- Before you edit, click the refresh button in your browser to be sure all previous changes are visible.
2. Make Small Edits -- do not leave the wiki page open for a long time. Once you have entered information, be sure to SAVE the changes as you work.
3. Communicate with your team -- If you are working in a group, let your team members know when you are working on the wiki page. If more than one team member edits the page at the same time, one or the other's work may be over-written.
4. Learn to use the "History" tab. -- At any time, you can recover information from previous edits. This is the power of the wiki!
5. Discussion -- In PBWiki there is a Comment button, and in Wikispaces there is a discussion area, for leaving messages and engaging in conversation.  Use the wiki pages for general information publishing only.