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Welcome to Wikilaunch!


Launching wikis in your classroom with wikispaces.com: A quick-start guide.

  1. Home
  2. Team 1's Page


What is a wiki?


A wiki is a collaboratively created and edited web page. Users can work together to create and edit real public and private webpages! We're all familiar with Wikipedia, the world's largest encyclopedia, and the world's first collaborative encyclopedia. Now you can bring the collaborative power of wikis to your classroom.

Watch this short video for a quick overview of the wiki approach: Wikis in Plain English

Why use wikis in the classroom?


  1. They are a great way to teach Common Core and 21st Century Learning skills:
    • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.
    • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
    • P21 Framework: Collaborate with Others and Information, Media, and Technology Skills
  2. These skills really are essential.
  3. Students love working on the internet and making their own web pages.

Getting started


Signing in to wikispaces.com


Just go to wikispaces.com and, under "Join Now," click "I'm a teacher."

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Creating a new wiki


Now you will need to create your wiki. This is the "umbrella" web page for your class.

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Enrolling students


Next, you'll want to enrol students. Just click the "Members" icon to the upper right...


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Then click "Invite people"...

Invite.png


Then, either put in the emails of the students you want to invite...


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Or you can upload username and password lists that you create by clicking on the Bulk User Creator (see above photo at bottom).

Editing a page


Now the students are ready to start. They can just sign in at wikispaces.com (they may have to sign up for a wikispaces account, unless you used the Bulk User Creator), click on the your wiki, and then they can add a new page.


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They name their new page:

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And then they can edit it:

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And edit their pages. All they have to do is click on their page name, and then click Edit. They will see the edit screen:

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Creating a new project


To create a new project for your students, just click the project icon...

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And then set up the teams...

Addteams.png


Just drag the new members to the team, or select them randomly:

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Editing a page from within a project


If the students will be working within a project you've created, they can just sign in at wikispaces.com (they may have to sign up for a wikispaces account, unless you used the Bulk User Creator) and click on the new wiki:

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Then they click the project name:


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They can add pages:

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Key editing features

The all important "Link."

Hyperlinks are what it's all about on the web. Just highlight the text you want to link and click the Link icon. You can use this to hyperlink to another website or link to a new page that you have or will create.

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Inserting files

Using the File icon, you can upload and insert images and other files.

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Widgets

Widgets are lots of fun. The most important are the the the Page List, Table of Contents and the References widget, which will automatically list references at the bottom of the page when you insert footnotes.

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The page list will display links to your student web pages, but only if they set up their pages on their own. pages created within projects will not be displayed, because they are not viewable by the general public.

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To use a Table of Contents, just insert the widget and then be sure to select the text for each heading and change it to a "heading" font:

headings.png


Important settings


You will want to go to your Settings page by clicking the gear icon in the upper right:


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Then click the "General" link to the left of the screen, and decide if you want a classic wiki, basic website, or the classroom view. Try them each out to see which you prefer.


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Now you'll want to set the permissions. I use the "protected" setting, so that anyone can view our products, but only members can edit.

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