Wikispaces
Name of Tool | Website URL | Cost | Download or Web-based | Description of the tool |
Wikispaces | $10/month | Web based | Hosts a virtual classroom wherein educators can share teaching aids and communication. |
Description of the Tool
This tool is an educational site that allows educators to 1. Communicate, collaborate, and share resources with other educators, parents, guests, and students within a community/network. 2. Create assignments and projects for students and then grade those assignments and projects. 3. Create a community where all participants can share and communicate then get statistics on who shares and what they share.
How to Use This Tool
Once the “organizer has set up their account (first arrow) they will want to invite others to join as well. To make it easy for the invitees wikispaces has created a join code (second arrow) that the organizer can send to participants. The participants can cut and past the entire address into their url.
Users will use the five tools within the circle the most. Those tools include 1. Add page 2. Upload file 3. Start discussion 4. Add project and 5. Add event. These icons are also found on the home page.
After clicking the create page you will be prompted to name the page then this screen will come up, it is a simple screen but has so many things that the creator can add. Below is a table of some of the files one can add as a widget. Wikispaces helps you embed these tools into your page.
Videos | YouTube, TeachTube, Educreations, Vimeo, Yahoo video, Bliptv, Viddler, and others |
Education | Dogobooks, Dogonews, Geogebra tube, and others |
Calendar | Sync Google calendar, 30 boxes, and other calenders |
Documents | Scribd, Bitty browser, and other documents |
Spreadsheets | Google spreadsheets, and other spreadsheets |
Polls | Survey gizmo, and other surveys |
RSS feeds | Enter the feed url, how many entries you want and other descriptors. |
Chat and IM | Skype, or other |
Slide show | Slide share, Prezi, flickr, other slide shows |
Map | Google Maps, other maps |
Poster | Glogster, other glogs |
Social | Facebook like, google plus one, digg, Reddit, Twitter, other |
Other | html |
How Can This Tool be Used by the Trainer/Teacher?
This tool is unique because it can be as casual or exhaustive as the educator would like to be. It can be used to do a small class that is one subject, or a simple communication method to allow educators, parents, and students to collaborate on something simple, like a fundraiser. It could also house an entire course or within a k-12 situation could encompass an entire class, co-op/homeschool, or independent study. The educator can use this tool as an instructional tool as well as an assessment and analysis program. Calendar events can be created using a syllabus as the guide and that calendar can sync with the calendars on the smartphones of the participant to give real time reminders of assignments that are due.
How Can This Tool be Used by the Trainer/Teacher to Support Student Learning?
This tool is one that can house many other tools. One of my favorites that students can link to is edu.glogster.com. In this website students can produce interactive posters that look like travel brochures but can be enriched by video, audio and full color pictures. They also have pre-built glogs that students can peruse and learn from hundreds of different topics. Another feature that I would use is sending a guest (subject matter expert) and invitation code. Then that person could write a simple article on what they do and top it off with a question and answer session. As an example, I would talk to my friend James and ask him to join to talk to students about alternative energy power generation and battery technology. James wouldn’t have to take very much time out of his busy schedule.
How Can This Tool be Used by Students?
Students can learn through collaborating with other students within the messaging tools. They can learn at their own pace and go in a direction that interests them most. This tool can make learning exciting through technology. Once a student learns about other tools through this tool it acts as a primer to help them decide if they would like to continue exploring the new tools that they are presented with.
Training and Other Resources
I describe Wikispaces like a central processing unit (CPU) of a computer wherein this tool does not generate any additional information, it only processes and organizes it so that anyone who has access to it can easily find the information they need on it. Youtube has many videos as to how to create a Wikispaces account.
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