Step by step guide to creating a. Wiki. To support DECD schools with establishing a sister school partnership

Transcription

1 Step by step guide to creating a Wiki To support DECD schools with establishing a sister school partnership To be read in conjunction with the Sister School Partnership guidelines:

2 CONTENTS Before you start What is a wiki? Page 3 Reasons for using a wiki in a languages classroom Page 4 Online safety Page 5 Creating your Wikispace Setting up a wiki Page 7 Your home page Page 9 Changing the home page welcome message Page 10 Using the edit tools Page 11 Calendar alerts Page 12 Discussion newsfeed Page 13 Adding a new page Page 14 Changing page elements Page 15 Inserting tables Page 16 Uploading files Page 17 Embedding widgets Page 18 Managing your Wikispace Settings menu: General Page 20 Settings menu: Permissions Page 21 Settings menu: User Creator (For bulk creation of student memberships) Page 22 Locking or monitoring pages for additional security Page 23 Managing memberships Page 24 Settings menu: Changing the wiki appearance Page 24 Managing projects Page 25 Creating a new project Page 25 Defining teams Page 26 Manually adding members to a team Page 27 Other web 2.0 tools Voki Page 28 Glogster Edu Page 29 Padlet Page 30 Skype and Skype classroom Page 31 2

3 Before you start What is a wiki? A wiki is a website that is developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing them to add and edit content. Wiki users don t need any special technical knowledge or expensive software. All that is required is a device with an Internet connection. A wiki is continuously under revision. A well-known example of a wiki is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with no authors but millions of contributors and editors. The word "wiki" comes from Hawaiian language, meaning quick or fast. What is the difference between a wiki and a blog? Both blogs and wikis are websites that can be easily updated using a web browser. There are a few crucial differences, however: Organisation: Blogs are organised by date, in reverse chronological order. Wikis are semantic webs, with new pages springing from other pages like a mind map or flowchart. Editing: Because blogs are time sensitive, individual entries are rarely edited. Wiki pages, on the other hand, are under constant revision. Authorship: Most blogs are authored by individuals and even when blogs have multiple authors, entries are almost always written by an individual. Wiki pages are usually written collaboratively, by groups and individuals. Who uses wikis? Wikis are used outside of schools by people collaborating on projects like collaborative cookbooks or sharing things online, such as family information and photos etc. In R-12 education, wikis are largely used by educators to share ideas and resources with other educators. Look at this educator example: The greatest potential, however, lies in student participation in the ongoing creation and development of the wiki. 3

4 Reasons for using wikis in a languages classroom They are quick and simple to use and allow collaboration, independently of time and space (great when connecting with schools in a different time zone), via easily accessible online spaces. They can be shared with a school in the target language country. They offer authentic writing practice. They allow students to be actively engaged in reading and writing: correcting, editing, and up-dating entries. They teach students the skills of collaboration alongside language skills. They present the student writers with an audience. They enable the sharing of multi-media content (without clogging up people s ). They are especially suitable for reading and writing in both L1 and L2. Spoken elements can also be included using sound and/or video files. Five Steps towards developing a successful wiki 1. Show students examples of successful wikis to motivate them (see the examples below). 2. Allow students to choose their own tasks, agreed upon collaboratively, in order to stimulate and maintain their interest. 3. Writing on an empty page may be difficult, so start the wiki yourself with a short entry or a set of linked pages. 4. Set clear guidelines and time limits for all tasks but allow the wiki to stay open even after the tasks are officially completed. 5. Comment on the wiki entries and encourage writing, editing and linking. Note: Students can work on different aspects of the same task. Separate pages can be readily linked together. Students can contribute to and rework shared content. Examples of Australian classroom wikis These wikis have all been developed as part of an Asia Education Foundation BRIDGE partnership. 4

5 Online safety The DECD Social media policy 1 and accompanying Social media guidelines for schools and preschools 2 provides questions with answers to help leaders with the practical implications of introducing and managing social media such as wikis. They also provide some information that may be useful for staff to help children and young people safely use social media. Cyber safety: Keeping children safe in an online world 3 aims to assist staff to put in place policies and procedures that both protect and inform children and young people, and their parents/ carers. Where any doubt exists regarding the sensitivity of the information, provisions must be made to limit access to a specific, relevant group of users (eg, use a closed community instead of a public one or host your own community). When you have permission and have met child protection obligations, you can post photos and videos, use student work and share news according to the following guidelines: A consent form must be signed by the parent or guardian prior to taking images of any child/ student who is under the age of 18 years. Sites must ensure each child shown in the image has a signed consent form. Where a photograph is taken of a group of students (eg, six students have a signed consent form on record but one has not) the image cannot be used unless consent is obtained for all students. Images of students/children on a website must not include any names identifying any of the students/children in the image and care must be taken not to reveal personal information about the subjects. Only text identifying the school can be used and/or a description of the activity. Only photographs with students in standard school uniform or day clothing are to be used. Before you start using your wiki with your class(es), make some basic decisions: How do you envisage using the wiki? Who will be able to see the wiki? (the public? members only?) Who will be able to edit the wiki? (teachers? students? vary by section?) Who will be able to join the wiki? (students only? parents? invited guests?) What parts of the wiki will you protect (lock from changes)? Who will moderate the wiki for appropriateness, etc? Who will have the authority to reset changes? Who will be notified of changes? Will the wiki have Individual or global memberships? (by individual students if you want an individual record of who made changes, or with one log-in per group or class?) Note: Refer to the Managing your wikispace section of this booklet for details of how to set up these safety parameters

6 Digital citizenship The following infographic was produced by Med Kharbach for Check out this link for some additional resources to support student online safety: line+safety 6

7 Creating your Wikispace Setting up a wiki In your browser navigate to Click on the I m a Teacher button to register with Wikispaces. Don t leave any spaces in your username. If you use your own name you may find that another wiki user has the same username you will be prompted to change it! Passwords that contain 15 or more characters are difficult to break you might like to use a phrase that relates to your sister school. Save your password in a safe place. It might be worthwhile to use an ipad app that stores all of your passwords under a single memorable password. 7

8 Once you have signed up with Wikispaces, you will be prompted to fill out the following table to create a new wiki. You can either create a single wiki that will be shared by a number of classes/teachers in your school or you can create separate wikis, one for each class. Note: Whatever name you give to your wiki will form part of the URL. Remember to include your school name! 8

9 Your home page By default your wiki will be displayed in classroom mode. The home page will contain three customisable elements: 1. A welcome message 2. A calendar alert (used to notify wiki members about projects and events) 3. A newsfeed for discussions For instructions on how to change to wiki or basic website modes, check out the Managing your wikispace booklet

10 Changing the home page welcome message Click on the arrow to access the edit button. You are now free to edit the existing text to write your own message that will inform your sister school about your school and community. Possibilities for the home page might include: School information Teacher information What you are hoping to get out of the sister school partnership. Remember: The home page will be the first page of your Wiki that your students, your school community and sister school will see. What kind of messages would you like it to convey? You can include photos, videos, links to your school webpage etc. Find out what editing tools are available on the next page. 10

11 Using the edit tools The first three buttons are text-formatting tools: bold, italics and underline. Click on the globe (Style Text button) to change the font colour, text alignment etc. The drop down menu alongside Normal lets you toggle between heading sizes and normal text. The blue bar button lets you separate off sections of your page. The Link button lets you make a link with a page in your website, a web address or an address. It s a good idea to tick the New Window button if you are linking to external pages. You can link to text such as a single word or heading or you can link to media such as a photo. Click on the File button to upload photos and documents that you can then insert into a page. The Widget button lets you embed items such as videos, vokis etc into your page (more about that later). Click on the Table button to yes you ve guessed it! - insert a table into your page. Once you ve inserted a table you can t format it so try and get it right the first time! To use the Comment button select the text you would like to comment on. This brings up a small window into which you can insert your text. Click Save. Your comment will pop up when visitors to the page hover over the text to which the comment is linked. The arrow lets you undo elements of the page that you have changed since the last save. Preview lets you view what the page will look like before it goes live. When you have finished editing your page click Save to return to the normal page view. It is a good idea to save regularly, even if you haven t finished working on the page. To save without leaving the editing view, click on the drop down menu alongside the save button and select Save and Continue. 11

12 Calendar alerts A calendar alert can be used to notify members of upcoming events such as the start or end dates for a shared project, a scheduled time for a Skype session, key holidays in (South) Australia and the partner country, etc. To delete the calendar event once it is finished, simply click on the hyperlink announcing the event (e.g. Welcome to your classroom shown in the alert above). This will bring up the Edit Event page and it is then just a matter of selecting delete. To add your own calendar event at any time, click on this button. Give the event a title and a start and end date. 12

13 The discussion newsfeed When you set up a new wiki it will automatically include a discussion newsfeed on your home page. This enables Wikispace members to ask questions, respond to questions and discuss a range of issues and topics of interest. You can add extra discussion newsfeeds to your home page by clicking the lasso in the navigation bar. Each new page that is created in the wiki will contain a discussion newsfeed by default. You have the option to monitor the newsfeed. This means that a copy of any message that is posted by a wiki member will be sent to the organiser of the wiki. Once you have finished the discussion you can delete it entirely! If you just want to delete an individual post, hover to the right of the message to reveal a rubbish bin. Ideas for use: As well as introducing themselves, encourage students to ask questions to investigate the culture of their partnership country. Identify an inquiry question for students to respond to around a global issue natural disasters, sustainability, water, etc. 13

14 Adding a new page As different classes participate in the sister school partnership you will need to create new pages. Click on the Add Page icon and key in your new page title. Ensure that you name your page according to the topic, collaborative activity or class. Click Create and your new page will open. Type in some initial text (as a minimum you could write Watch this space if you attempt to save a blank page you will be prompted to add some text) and click save. The new page will then be displayed on the right hand navigation pane and can be worked on by any wiki member. A possible initial collaborative activity might be to create a Knowledge Hunt. Knowledge Hunts are activities where students are given a number of questions to answer and a list of web based resources to use in answering the questions. As an introduction for your students to the sister school, create a Knowledge Hunt on your partnership country. Key to the development of a rich Knowledge Hunt is careful selection of appropriate digital content (e.g. websites, multimedia, text and images) and questions that engage students. You might like to use free game based software such as Kahoot ( to generate quizzes that are interactive. 14

15 Changing page elements Adding new content to an existing page 1. Navigate to the page (in the right hand navigation pane) 2. Click on Edit to bring up the editing menu (refer back to page 8). Some content is displayed better if it is placed in a table (see next page). Changing a page name If you don t like the name you ve given to a page you can change it easily. Click on the pages link. This will bring up all of the files (photos, documents etc.) that you have uploaded and a list of pages. When you don t have many pages and files, it is easy to locate the one you want. If your wiki has multiple pages you might need to use the search function. Once you ve located your page, click on the arrow alongside it and then on Rename. Follow the prompts. 15

16 Adding a table Tables are useful when you need to organise or display a number of elements as they enable you to utilise the full width of a page. Look at the following example. Without tables, content is displayed vertically and may require scrolling: Here is the same content displayed in a table: How to add a table: Navigate to the page where you would like to place the table, click Edit and then click The Insert Table window (right) will pop up. Decide how many columns and rows you need and click Insert Table. By default, the cursor will be located in the left hand cell of the top row of the newly created table. You are now free to insert text, images or a widget into individual cells. Look at the next page for instructions on how to upload images or documents that can be added to a table. Instructions for embedding widgets are on page 15. Note: It s important to determine how many columns/rows you need in your table as it can be tricky to add additional ones later! 16

17 Uploading files You are able to upload files ahead of time or from within a page or table. If you upload files ahead of time you are able to upload several at a time. Uploading files ahead of time Click on the Upload File icon: In the pop-up window click the Add files button. According to this window, you can add as many files as you like at this stage simply by holding down Ctrl (PC) or command (Mac) and clicking on the files that you wish to upload. Uploading files within a page or table Navigate to the page and/or table and click Edit. Insert the cursor at the point or cell in which you want to add some content and then click Click the +Upload Files button and navigate to the file you wish to upload. Once the file has uploaded, you can click on it to add it to your table. When you add an image to your Wikispace page, a Tool Bar appears to edit its size, alignment etc. You can also link the image to a URL or give it a caption. If you add a URL, it is a good idea to tick the New Window button. 17

18 Embedding widgets A range of widgets can be embedded into your Wiki. Access the widget menu from your edit toolbar. You might like to: Create a video to introduce students to each other Embed vocabulary flashcards using Quizlet via the Education button Use a poll to survey students on the issues that are important to them Embed a slideshow created by students Add a map to show your school s geographical location Embed students digital posters created through Glogster Embed student avatars created in Voki through other HTML Embed post-it notes generated in Padlet through other HTML Note: Once you have created videos in a program like imovie, share them to YouTube. You can then go to YouTube to access the embed code. Instructions for using Glogster, Voki and Padlet are provided on page 28. Here are the steps: Go to the site for the slideshow, avatar, video etc that you wish to embed and copy the embed code. Click in the box with the code to highlight all of it. This may save the code automatically to the clipboard. If not simply click Ctrl c to copy (PC) or command c (Mac): Paste this code into the widget in the box provided. Check out the examples overleaf. 18

19 Embedding a Google Map Go to Google Maps and navigate to your location. Click on the cog at the base of the map. Click on Share and embed map. Select the size of your map. Copy the embed code. Create a page in your wiki or open an existing page and click on the widget button. Click on map, select Google maps and paste the embed code in the box at the foot of this pop up window (Note the instructions provided in Wikispaces refer to an older version of Google maps). Click save. Embedding a YouTube video Go to YouTube and locate the video you wish to embed. Ideas for use: Consider what learning activities you can engage students in through the use of Google Maps Describe geographical location of town / country Compare local environments Discuss environmental issues Click on the Embed button. Select the size of the finished video. It s a good idea to un-tick the box Show suggested videos Copy the embed code. Create a page in your wiki or open an existing page and click on the widget button. Click on Video, select YouTube and paste the embed code in the box at the foot of this pop up window version. Click save. 19

20 Managing your Wikispace Settings menu: General Each of the settings elements allows you to alter your wiki in some way. With the General tab you can change the overall format to change your wiki from the classroom type (default) which automatically includes a calendar and newsfeed, to other types of wikis where the use of discussion feeds etc. is optional. Check them out by clicking alongside the wiki type and then on Save. Navigate to Home to see what the page view looks like 20

21 Settings menu: Permissions The permissions tab allows the wiki creator to determine who gets to view and edit the wiki. The default setting is private. Set the entire wiki to private view (visible and editable only by members) if this is your school's policy. This means that only people who are invited to join the wiki can see it. Members of the public doing a Google search will not stumble across it. OR Set the entire wiki to protected or member-only editing, if you wish to prevent nonstudent visitors from making changes. An advantage of the protected view is that it provides your students with an audience outside of school but they will not be able to edit the pages in any way. 21

22 Settings menu: User Creator Use this tab to create up to 100 student memberships in bulk. You will only have wikis listed of which you are an Organiser. I suggest you use the second option: I will paste in a text list. Note: It is important that usernames allow you to identify who has edited the Wikispace. Through the Revisions button you are able to track all contributions and changes to each page. If your students don t have addresses, Wikispaces will automatically generate them for them. For example: usernameofstudent@members.wikispaces.com 22

23 Locking or monitoring pages for additional security You may want to protect certain pages from changes or accidental erasures. Here is how to do it: Navigate to the page(s) you want to lock. Click on the three dots alongside the edit button. This will give you access to more options. Click on the lock icon. Use Notify so that you are informed by of any changes made to pages or discussions you can select which elements to monitor. Be mindful of your reasons for locking pages though: some teachers lock them from fear that certain students will destroy the content on a page. Keep in mind that you can always revert to previous saved copies! Here is how you do it: Navigate to the page with undesirable elements. Click on the clock alongside the edit button. This will bring up a list of all of the changes that have been made by date and time. Click on select and choose 2 dates for comparison. If you need to revert to a previous version, click on its date and then on Revert to This Version. 23

24 Managing memberships Select to see a list of everyone who is a member of your Wikispace. By ticking alongside individual member names you can easily Remove them or change their status: Make Organiser or Demote to Member. Organisers have the ability to create, delete and change privileges to pages. Members can edit pages unless they are locked by Organisers. Settings menu: Changing the wiki appearance In the wiki classroom format, options for changing the style of the wiki are limited you can change the page colour and that is it! Go to Settings and click on Themes and Colors Click on the colour you would like to select and then on Apply. The colour change will apply to all pages in your wiki. In the wiki or basic website formats you are given more options with a number of page styles as well as colour selections if you choose to stay with the current theme. 24

25 Managing projects Each project on your Wikispace is made up of one or more member teams. Team content (i.e. pages and files) is grouped together, separate from the main area of the wiki. That way, students in teams can do their group work completely independently from other teams. There s no limit to the number of teams within a project, or to the number of pages within a team, but here are a few things to keep in mind as you get started: Only members of the Wikispace can be members of a team on that Wikispace. Every team should have at least one member. Teams start out with one page, called "Home". Team members can create more pages as the teamwork continues. Within a given project, an individual can only be a member of one team. All Organisers on the Wikispace are considered team leaders of all teams. They will not appear on the member list for any individual team, but will have access to all teams and team pages. Ideas for use: Create an enquiry-based question and divide students into teams. Ask each Team to research, explore and present on a specific aspect of the enquiry-based question in their Project space. Creating a new project Only Wikispace Organisers can create new Projects and assign teams. Click on the Add Project icon: Give your project a name and, if desired, provide a start and end date. Note: Like page names, project names must also be unique. If you expect that you ll be creating several similar projects, consider adding numbers to your project name. 25

26 Defining teams If you want less than three teams, click on the dustbin alongside the ones you don t want. If you want more than three, click on + Add a team Decide how your teams will be defined. You could: Name the teams now and add members later Upload a spreadsheet with usernames and team names (see the User Creator notes on page 22) Randomly assign members to teams of a set size Use an existing project as a template. No matter how you assign teams, you will be able to rearrange them later. You can even rearrange team memberships when the project is active. Set default team permissions for this project: Public to wiki: All wiki members can view and edit pages Protected to wiki: All wiki members can view pages, but only members of this team can edit pages Private: Only members of this team can view and edit pages Custom: Define custom permissions Note: Custom team permissions overrule wiki permissions. For example, if your Wikispace is set to private, but your custom team settings include "Everyone can view pages," even people without membership to your private Wikispace will have access to pages of that team. 26

27 Manually adding members to a team Drag and drop members from your Unassigned Wiki Members list into the appropriate team. To assign multiple members at once, check the boxes next to their names, then drag them into the correct team. To move members between teams, just drag their names into the appropriate team field. To delete a member from a team, click the x next to their name. 27

28 Other web 2.0 tools There is a wide range of Web 2.0 tools that enable students to interact with the sister school using the target language. Voki Voki ( enables users to create an avatar with a customisable background. Vokis are great for practising speaking skills. Creating an animated character and giving it a voice is engaging for students and breaks down the inhibitions that students often have when faced with making an oral presentation or recording themselves speaking. This link will take you to a video that outlines the step-by-step process for creating a Voki: Remember: Set time limits at the customising stages so that priority is given to the recorded message! You can also use the text to speech element of Voki where the focus is on the written text. Check out this link for a guide to this feature: Ideas for use: Get your students to create individual Vokis to introduce themselves to students at their partnership school. Each Voki can be embedded in the Wikispace. Check again how to do that on page 18. For ease of navigation, it s a good idea to place each Voki within a table. Go back to page 16 for directions on adding a table to your page. Students can discuss their likes/dislikes, hobbies, school activities etc and record some or all of their speech in the second language. Create a class Voki for students to ask questions to the class in their partnerschool. This could be in English or the target language. The partner-school can then create a class Voki to answer the questions and ask additional questions. Questions could be general in nature or relate to a specific project that both schools are involved in. 28

29 Glogster edu Glogster Edu ( enables users to create and share glogs - online interactive posters that can be made up of text, images, music, and video and links to external websites. Glogs are great for combining a number of resources in the one place. This link will take you to a video that outlines the step-by-step process for creating a glog: Note: Glogster Edu is hosted separately from the commercial version of Glogster thereby preventing student access to Glogs created by other people that contain questionable content. Ideas for use: Get your students to create a Glog that introduces themselves to their partnership school. Consider what their partners may like to know about them and the most effective means to communicate this. Encourage creativity in presentation styles add text, images, video as appropriate. Have students in small groups identify an issue that is important to them investigate the issue then create a Glog to communicate their concerns. 29

30 Padlet Padlet ( enables users to add "post-it" style notes to a shared online notice board. These notes can contain links, videos, images and text. Padlet walls can be set to private or public view. Private walls require a password to access them or can be accessed by registered users whose addresses have been specified by the wall creator. The creator of a public wall can specify who can or can t post notes to the wall. They can also moderate all notes before they appear. This link will take you to a video that outlines the step-by-step process for creating a Padlet wall: Ideas for use: If your students are creating slideshows or producing videos about a particular topic, you could use Padlet to display their best work on the one page. As your students are researching the country in which their sister school is located they might like to post questions for students in the sister school to answer and vice versa. The classroom teacher could place a sentence starter (target language) on a wall and get students to complete it. 30

31 Skype Skype is free communication software that allows you to make calls, instant message and video conference online. Helpful Tips for Implementing Skype Make sure that Skype is not blocked in your school. If it is, find out who can unblock it. Choose the venue that works best for your purposes (your classroom? the library?) It s important to do a test Skype call ahead of time to make sure everything is working well (sound and video) as well as to confirm the time zone difference. Only allow your students to have supervised access to Skype. Make sure the screen is large enough for all students to see what s going on and check that everyone can be seen and heard. When students ask questions, it s a good idea to have them stand up and walk in front of the camera. Try Skype s built-in recording option to rebroadcast your conversations later! Assign roles for your students. (Check this link for a list of possible roles: Make sure there s someone there who can help if you need it. (This could be a student.) Be prepared! Have students prepare a list of questions to ask the children in their partner school (possibly in a second language) ahead of time and post these via or on the Wikispace for their partners to prepare responses and vice-versa (asynchronous). During a real-time video link-up, students can ask each other the questions and give answers in each of the target languages (synchronous). Remind your students that their sister school partners may not understand slang and acronyms. Have a time limit for the Skype session. Don t panic if there are hiccups with the technology! Reschedule :). 31

32 Skype in the classroom Skype in the classroom provides you with access to a range of projects/lessons that can be used to support learning across cultures. View this link to search to a project that may be of interest to you and your partner or create your own project: Check out other web 2.0 tools at this link: If you have access to a class set of ipads, you can find details of apps at the same address. 32