6-WIKISPACES



Wikispaces are collaborative free online webpages, which, under my point of view, the major advantage that they present is that they are very user-friendly, files of any kind can be uploaded and even small children can collaborate. Last year I started using wikispaces with my grade 4 students and they understood really quickly how to manage it. It was very motivating for them looking at their productions online and sharing with families and friends.

Steps to create a wikipage:


 * 1) Open a wikispaces account. My recommendation is to use a personal email, not an institutional one . Sometimes corporate accounts do not allow to open emails with links and audiovisual materials that we are going to upload to the page.There are several types of accounts. As teachers, we can open an educative account which is free and provides all the features that we mainly use.
 * 2) Name the wiki . You can change the name after if you are not very with it.
 * 3) Home . This is the presentation of your webpage. To change the appearance, go to "manage wiki" and click " look and feel" . Here you can decide the structure , the design and the colors. You can also add a logo , that will show instead of the flowerpot.
 * 4) Pages. Pages help us organize the content of the wiki into categories( subjects, topics, projects, communication with families, pictures, field trips, homework...etc.etc.)
 * 5) Members . How do we add students? there are basically three ways to join a wiki: by invitation, by request and creating members. Specially with young children that are not very used to manage email accounts, I strongly recommend to create the users yourself . It avoids confusion between the students. This also allows you to have a control of their usernames and passwords . Once we have it, keep record in a handy spreadsheet for further reference. I use the same students' username that they have to access the system in the school and the library, it's easier for them to remember. They can also have a special folder for their work on the wiki where we will provide them with the basic steps to do every activity and that they will keep for future reference , in the front page they can keep the username and passwords .In my last wiki I created a card for them with their username, password and a Qr code for them to access the page even if they do not remember or are still not capable to type the wiki in the browser.For the youngest it also works to create a username and a password that will be the same for all of them.
 * 6) Manage wiki. In this section you can set up and change the main features of the page like members, pages, privacy and permissions. I strongly recommend to protect the teacher created pages to avoid accidental erasing from students.
 * 7) Projects. Through this feature we can organize groups for a project, assign tasks and monitor students' work.

This is a sample template for students to start with wikis



This one encourages students to keep a record of the books they read in Spanish. Later on, they used the tables to orginze their own work.

Example of division lesson in notebook made in class, for students' further reference: