Using the Wiki Tool in Blackboard
What is a wiki? What can wikis be used for? Adding a wiki Using a wiki Navigating around your wiki Managing and modifying your wiki Getting further help
What can wikis be used for?
Wikis can be used for a wide variety of purposes including: • The production and synthesis of knowledge and ideas. • Collaborating with colleagues on research papers; critical peer reviews; project documents; etc. • Creating an area for storing and collating project management documents and processes. • Formation of “Virtual Study Groups” to aid exam preparation or the creation of instant study guides. • A “space” for brainstorming and sharing ideas. • Creating agendas – it becomes a note-taking template. • The generation of glossaries. • A tool for creative writing.
Using the Wiki tool in Blackboard
Overview The new blogs and wiki tools in Blackboard will be available to all users from September 2007. The blog and wiki tools in Blackboard allow users to create and share material they have created with other users at any time. This means that you can create and publish material for people to read, to comment upon or even add new material to. Both blogs and wikis enable users to share and work collaboratively on ideas, research or group assignments. A blog takes the form of a chronological record. A wiki is a document which can be worked on by a number of users, and which tracks and records all changes made. Wikis can be created by users in their Blackboard home area. This is a new feature which allows users to create personal content and either keep it private or share it with others. Instructors can create wikis for use by students in a Blackboard course. This might be used to record a group project, to capture information to be used later, or for planning. For more information for staff on how you might use a wiki, please contact your Faculty Learning Technologist. This tutorial covers how users would create a wiki for their own use in their personal Blackboard space.
Getting started
Log on to Blackboard in the normal way. NOTE: The blogs and wikis will only work properly in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox and if the tools have been activated in your Blackboard account. If you cannot see the blog and wikki tool, please contact the Blackboard administrator at blackboard@canterbury.ac.uk
Adding a wiki
Go to the Tools home page, click on the My Blogs and Wikis link. You are taken to your home page, which is a contents page listing your personal details, and all of the blogs and wikis that you have created.
What is a wiki?
A wiki is a type of website that allows users to collaborate and easily add, remove, and edit and change some available content. A typical feature of wikis is the ability to link between a number of pages. Furthermore, the user can see a history of changes and edits made by other users to a particular page and, if necessary, revert back to a previous version.
Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit: Updated August 2007
Using the Wiki Tool in Blackboard
In the right-hand side bar, under toolbox, click on the add new site link. To starting using your wiki click on the name of your wiki, as shown in our example. From the page section in the sidebar on the right, click on new. You will be taken to a wiki entry form screen. The Add New Site screen will be displayed.
Give your wiki a name. Select “wiki: Create a new website or wiki” Give a brief (optional) description of what your wiki is about. Note: The RSS feed is currently not available on Blackboard. It is hoped that this feature will be fully operational in the near future. Click on the OK button to create your site. You will then be taken to the Manage My Sites screen. Replace the default heading in the Page Name box with one of your own - something that is going to describe the nature of your wiki page. Start typing your entry (or posting) inside the editing box. You can use the Microsoft Word-like toolbar to format the presentation of your entry. You can change the font style and size; use different forms of page justification; italicise text or make it bold; add hypertext links; upload files or pictures; create tables; insert or embed different types of media; etc.
Using your wiki
Posting an entry From within your Blogs and Wikis area you should now see your new wiki. Any blogs and wiki you create will be listed here.
Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit: Updated August 2007
Once you are satisfied with your wiki entry, click on the Save button to save and publish your work
Creating a link to a new page
Wikis do not have to be just one page. Like other web sites they can have many pages. Pages could be used for example to discuss different topics or build different documents.
Using the Wiki Tool in Blackboard
We create new a new page in a wiki by placing a link from an existing page. Go back into your new page by selecting edit from the toolbox on the right hand side of your screen. Enter some text, e.g. Page 1 and then highlight it with your mouse. Now go to the Word-like toolbar and you will see the link icon. Click the insert link icon as shown here, a new window will pop-up. In the Insert link box, shown here, choose "Link to a new page" option and give the page a name, e.g “page 1.” Click on the Insert button. Now your text should be underlined showing that it is a link to another page. Once you have finished editing your page, click on the Save button at the bottom of the screen. Site navigation The site navigation which appears in the sidebar on the right allows you to create sites quickly without building your own navigational structure within the site as you would often see in a website. If you would like a more advanced navigation structure, you can build that by creating your own links between pages. Page list The Page list is an alternative and more indepth way to access all the different pages within a wiki. It is found within the toolbox, again on the right-hand menu. To access the page list, click on the page list link in the toolbox module – a new window will open The page list provides you with a list of all of the pages in the wiki. Clicking on a page name link in the page list will open the selected page in the main wiki window. This more detailed listing also shows you who last modified the wiki and when. It also shows how many times it has been revised.
You can now go to the new page, by clicking on the newly created link. It is currently empty. To make your new page appear in your site listing you need to enter some text with it.
To enter text on your new page.
Go to the page section in the right-hand sidebar on the right, click on edit. Add some text to your page and save it.
Commenting on a page
Navigating around your wiki Navigating through a wiki is similar to navigating a website. You can click on any link to go to that page, but you can also use the links within the Site Navigation and Page list sections always found in the right-hand panel.
Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit: Updated August 2007
There are two ways of editing a wiki. One is to write directly on the wiki page as we have done so far. A second way however is to add comments about what has been written.
Using the Wiki Tool in Blackboard
The comments link at the bottom of each wiki page will take you to an area in which you can make comments and view all previous comments made. Note: Comments is a feature which must be activated by the owner of the wiki, therefore you may or may not see the Add Comment form. If the Comments feature has been made available Click on the Comments links – the add comment box will appear below your wiki page. Add a comment, then click add comment. The comments box will now be closed by notice that the comments link on your webpage should now show that one comment has been added. From the Manage My Sites page you can modify, share and delete a wiki. Click on the Sharing button of the blog or wiki you wish to share.
You will be presented with the sharing a wiki page. As the owner of the wiki, you have full permissions to view, edit, comment on and export your own site.
Managing and modifying wiki pages
Sharing your wiki A wiki is usually a collaborative effort, where many people can build a document or work on a project. To share your wiki with other students or staff return to your tools area in Blackboard by clicking on the tools tab at the top of the Blackboard screen.
Tick the appropriate boxes against Everyone, under Standard Roles, with those permissions that you feel is appropriate for them and for the site that you wish to share. View will allow others to just see your wiki, Edit will enable them to add to the pages directly, whilst comment means they cannot write directly on the page, but can add comments to it. Note: You can always revisit this section if you wish to modify or change the permissions. Click on the ok button to confirm changes. You will be taken back to the Manage My Sites page. Click on the ok button again to take you back to your personal Expo Site home page.
Go into your blog and wiki area. You will be taken to a page showing all your blogs and wikis.
Editing an existing page
To edit an existing page in a wiki, click on the edit link in the page module. The edit screen is identical to the screen for creating a new page. It contains a graphical editor that allows you to write text, format it, add images, and add links to files or other pages.
You will see the standard right-hand menu page. Select manage sites.
Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit: Updated August 2007
Using the Wiki Tool in Blackboard
You will see the standard right-hand menu page. Select manage sites. From the Manage My Sites page you can modify, share and delete a wiki. If you want to delete your wiki select remove. Getting further help If you want to find out more about Page history, Recovering pages and Exporting your wiki, please refer to the online help that accompanies the blog software by clicking on the question mark icon.
Again, please refer to the tutorial entitled: “Using the text editor” to find out more how to use some of the text editing features. Vista users may need to see the relevant information.
Deleting an existing page
Pages in a wiki can be deleted at any point by their owner. However depending on your permissions in the wiki, you may or may not be able to select the delete link Click on the delete link in the page section in the right hand panel. You will be taken to a confirmation page. Choose yes to delete the page and keep the version history, purge to permanently delete the page and all of the associated history, or no to cancel. When you delete a page, the existing text is replaced with a message about who deleted it and when. Deleted pages are stored as page revisions, so they will still be visible in the Page List and Page History areas. This also allows them to be recovered at any time.
Deleting a whole wiki
To entirely remove a wiki you need to return to your tools area in Bb by clicking on the tools tab at the top of the Blackboard screen. Go into your blog and wiki area. You will be taken to a page showing all your blogs and wikis.
Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit: Updated August 2007