An Easy 21st Century
Student-Centered Tool
Your Class Can’t Be
Without
Wikis for Everyone!
Cara Grasso
Math Teacher
Sabino High School
Tucson Unified School District
Cara.grasso@tusd1.org
What’s a Wiki?
According to Wikipedia a wiki is a
―page or collection of Web pages
designed to enable anyone who
accesses it to contribute or modify
content, using a simplified markup
language.‖
Why Wiki?
Advantages of Wikis over regular web
pages
– Easy
– Free
– No software required (other than a web
browser)
– Does not require HTML
– Easy to track changes on the Wiki
– Its mostly set up—you just need to fill in
the content
Wikis Requirements
Internet access
E-mail account
Basic typing and computer skills
– Uses an interface similar to Word
Example of a Wiki
My Honors Pre-Calculus class made a
wiki for the end of semester review
http://honorsprecaltrig.wikispaces.com
Uses of Wiki
Reviews for finals
Jig Saw activities
PowerPoint presentations
Class website
Multimedia presentations
Value of the Wiki
Computer skills are essential to nearly
every profession
Colleges assign group projects on-line
(webCT, blackboard vista, web assign
etc.)
Gives students an opportunity to be
creative and show mastery of math
content in an alternate format
Students Comments About
Their Wiki Experience
―It is very easy to add documents and
to remove documents from the wiki‖
―Fun Project‖
―Everything was easy to do and
understand‖
―Good Experience‖
Little Leason We Learned
Along the Way
―The wiki shouldn’t be edited by two
people at the same time(!)‖
2007 Office documents are not
backwards compatible with 2003
Office
―Loading Documents to the wiki
instead of working directly on the
page was more organized‖
Starting a Wiki
Website www.wikipaces.com
We have given away over 130,000
wikis for K-12 education. Learn more
and create your own classroom wiki
today.
Create Your Wiki
Private Wiki
– Allows only members of the wiki to view
and edit the wiki
– Students are invited to join via e-mail
You can create a different wiki for
each class you teach
Editing Your Wiki
Click on the ―Edit this Page‖
– A text editor will appear
– Type and edit just like a word document
– When you are finished click ―Save‖
Add a New Page to Your
Wiki
Highlight the text that you want to link
Click on the Link Icon
Rename the new page if you wish
Click ―OK‖
Add an External Link to
the Wiki
Highlight the text that you want to link
Click the link icon
Click the External Link radio button
Type in the web address
Click ―OK‖
Other Features of a Wiki
You can upload files, images, and
video
Click the Insert Images and Pictures
icon
Select the file to be uploaded from
your computer
Add word documents, powerpoint,
pdf, images, videos, etc
Changing the Settings
Click ―Manage Wiki‖
Click ―Look and Feel‖
– You can change the color, design, and
add a logo
Adding Students to the
Wiki
Click ―Manage Wiki‖
Click ―Invite People‖
Enter e-mail address (have students
enter their own!)
Click ―Send‖
Final Thoughts
When presented with a challenge
students usually will not only meet the
challenge but will usually produce at a
level higher than expected