Wikispaces Celebrates 100,000 Free Teacher Wikis

Wikispaces just announced that they have reached their goal of giving away 100,000 wikis to teachers! How are they celebrating? By giving away 250,000 MORE wikis!

Also in their announcement they have promised free online live events that will,

share Wikispaces news, give short tutorials on how best to use Wikispaces in the classroom, hear success stories and best practices from educators like you, answer your questions, and connect people so we can all share and learn from each other.

I would like to applaud their support of educators and ask that more Web 2.0 developers follow their example and that of sites like Animoto and Voicethread, too.

GAETC Review: Tony Brewer - Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting: Tools of the 21st Century Classroom

I found that Tony Brewer was either pretty misinformed or ignorant of the ways wikis can work. He was fairly insistent that wikis could not be moderated nor the publishing of wikis controlled, which is entirely wrong. Some wikis require that the username and password be shared among users to post, some are created for open posting only, but there are others where the wiki can be established so only those who are members may publish and edit. I can't help but be disturbed by this misinformation given that he has built his career on presentations such as these. Blogs are so much more prevalent than wikis and even though the room wasn't packed, he managed to misinform everyone there and leave them with the impression that wikis aren't such a great tool.

Going on, he suggested the use of blogs could allow for multiple collaborators. How? Give the username and password to everyone who will be contributing. Isn't that a wiki? (Correction: Since my original post, I have discovered that you can have a multi-authored blog.) Why do so in a blog format when you could collaborate on a wiki? Each person can have their own login to use, and changes and additions can be tracked by the user.

He poses many questions about the validity of the information on the site and how you can't guarantee that it is free of bias. With an educationally focused wiki, this is not an issue. His allegiance appeared to be more aligned with Wikipedia than providing any other kinds of examples. He even showed Wikipedia and used it as an example.

Then he asked, based on the information he had given, which we would prefer. I was the only one who chose a wiki. Then he made some comment like, "How do you like being the only one?" Okay, I had to comment on that. I gave a short explanation of how I use wikis and that Wikispaces was a perfect medium to use with students and point-by-point contradicted his negative remarks about wikis. I was shocked to find that he had never even HEARD of Wikispaces. Then he said he would be careful because it ends in ".com". My hand went up again to relay that they have teacher pages which are free and add free to boot. Thankfully, another member of the audience brought up another suggestion of using WetPaint.

What really threw me was that when an audience member asked what you could use a wiki for other than having students create an encyclopedia. He was blank!! He solicited examples so my hand went up for the third time to relate the book study a group of 8th grade gifted students are doing with some of the faculty members in that school. I'd link to it, but it's private to protect the students, but I am very excited about what they are doing.

So, in short (too late right?), I guess he was rather ignorant about the use of wikis. But isn't it his job to completely inform himself before coming to a state conference and presenting on subjects such as this? Additionally, one of his links to educational wiki examples was a page produced on, drum roll please....Wikispaces!!

As David Warlick would say, just my 2 cents worth. So, in short if you are reading this and want to know more about wikis, you can go to my Diigo list of wiki examples.

First Web 2.0 Presentation!

In September I gave my first presentation on Web 2.0 tools to teachers at one of the elementary schools in my district. I have to admit to being a bit nervous about the whole thing. Right now access to technology is difficult and I feared that once they knew I was there to speak about using it, that they would tune out. Wrong. The main focus centered on defining what Web 2.0 is and then introducing wikis and the use of Del.icio.us. The seemed attentive and several people asked questions, which is always good! The teacher I worked with to set up my presentation reported that several teachers had created wikis that night! Now to spread the word to the rest of the schools!

The Wonders of Web 2.0

Faced with limited resources but ample demand to use technology in instruction what could I as an Instructional Technologist do to help teachers in my system? More than I thought, and that’s a good thing. After attending the NECC 2007 conference in Atlanta this past June, I have become acquainted with a host of possibilities. I am all about free tools for my teachers, and now I have been exposed to so many it’s making my head spin. Normally, I’m not a fan of dizziness, but this is one ride where I don’t mind the feeling.

Although I was somewhat aware of the Web 2.0 tools that were out there, I’m ashamed to admit that I wasn’t a user myself. There were the normal excuses, of course - not time being the biggest. Until now that is, and I have made a 2007-08 school year resolution to use them so I can share and teach about them to others. I think the most exciting thing that I learned about was Wikis. Yes, I had used Wikipedia on many occasions, but never looked into creating my own. That’s all behind me now. As a central office employee often deluged with committee responsibilities, I am hopeful that using wikis will help me to streamline those responsibilities and hopefully reduce the need to have as many face-to-face meetings. I am realistic that this will take some time to get people to “buy” into, but I’m confident that will catch on slowly but surely.