Introduction to Wikis

The term wiki comes from the Wikiwikiweb site developed by Ward Cunningham in 1994. Visiting Hawaii he was looking for a bus from the airport and was told to take the ‘wikiwiki’ (Hawaiian for quick) bus. Wikis = quick website.

Wikipedia is hosted on a wiki (MediaWiki) demonstrates how people can globally collaborate to produce and share information. There are numerous examples of educators using Wikipedia for school and universities projects to demonstrate how open content works.

The most common wikis used by educators are:

• Wikispaces – their help page for teachers
• WetPaint – WetPaint educator wikis
• PBWorks (formerly known as PBWikis) – PBWorks educator wikis
• MediaWiki

Wikispaces, WetPaint and PBWorks wikis are all free hosted wiki solutions (i.e. you can sign up for a free wiki and the company hosts the wiki for you) where as MediaWiki is a wiki solution that you host yourself on your own server or with a hosting company. Each type of wiki uses wikitext but has different features. Participants were taken on a tour of the edit, discussion and history features of wikispaces.

During the session we also brainstormed the different ways educators can use wikis (as shown below – 95 people).

Recording (60 mins):

• http://sas./site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2009-05-13.1711.M.807BAABEF7BAA0B174AE0347F2B452.vcr
• MP3 Recording http://audio./cr20/getwildwithwikisI.mp3
• Chat log http://wiki./CR+20+LIVE+beginner+series+13+May+09

Blog posts and discussion forums:

• Introducing The Classroom 2.0 LIVE! Beginner Series! – Sue Waters (read comments for helpful tips on using wikis)
• What is a Wiki – Anne Mirtschin
• Classroom 2.0 discussion on Go Wild With Wiki session