Thing 9: Practice Wiki

"Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play. For this discovery and exploration exercise, we’ve set up a whole SWC23 wiki that’s for nothing but play!


For this “explore-and-play-with-wikis” exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two to the Wikispaces SWC23 wiki. The theme of this wiki is simply “Favorites” : Favorite books, favorite vacation spots, favorite restaurants, favorite anything …all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page.

Discovery Exercise:

  1. Access the SWC23 Wiki and create a login account for yourself.
  2. Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there. It’s easy to do if you follow these simple steps:

    Example:

    • Title of blog.
    • Highlight the Title of Blog
    • Click on the world with the chain link button
    • Click on "external web address" and type (or copy and paste) it in!

OPTIONAL: Add a favorite or two to a few other pages (Favorite books, favorite vacation spot, etc). And, if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a separate page for book review or short travel essay and link up to that.

  1. Create a post in your blog about the experience. (For ideas if you're stuck, try the blog prompts below.)

Blog Prompts

  1. What was easy/hard about working with the wiki?
  2. What ideas do you have for how wikis might be used in education?
  3. What ideas do you have for wikis and you? (foreshadowing, perhaps??)

* NOTE: The SWC23 Wiki was created using the free version of Wikispaces, a tool that lets you create webpages that anyone can edit. PBWiki is another great site for free educational wikis.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Discovery is so much fun!

Have you ever thought, ”Gosh, I wish I had time to learn more about blogs, wikis, or (enter your Web 2.0 tool here)?” Well, this is your chance to take the time to focus on your personal and professional development around Web 2.0 tools. It’s fun to explore these tools and figure out ways to use them in school, with your personal Web sites, or in other ways.

SWC's 23 Things is a twist on the Library Learning 2.0 program developed by Helene Blowers at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenberg County and adopted or adapted by many other libraries (including Minnesota Libraries with 23 Things on a Stick) and organizations since then.Learning 2.0 is online learning program that encourages staff to learn more about emerging technologies on the web that are changing the way people, society and schools access information and communicate with each other.

Over the course of the next nine weeks, this website will highlight “23 Things” and discovery exercises to help staff become familiar with blogging, RSS news feeds, tagging, wikis, podcasting, online applications, and video and image hosting sites.To familiarize yourself with this project, be sure to read the About page. The FAQs should answer most of your questions about this program. If not, then please add your question to the FAQ page as a comment.So fasten your seat belts, grab your mouse and get ready for a discovery adventure… and remember, it's OK to play with technology and have fun!