Wikis

Okay, so you've joined us here on the Sperreng Technology Improvement Wiki and you're wondering what things are and how to do stuff. Please take some time to read over this page and to familiarize yourself with this wiki. The more comfortable you are at contributing, the more helpful and powerful this wiki will become.
 * How to use this Wiki:**

First off you will need to join this space. If you have you can skip this part and go on to other matters. If you have not then please take the time to join. How to join: 1. Click the Join this space link at the top of the page. 2. If you don't have a Wikispaces account, you will be prompted to set one up. I suggest using your school e-dress for registration since this is to be used for school purposes. 3. After signing up check your e-mail for a verification message. 4. Click on the link in that message. 5. Fill in a short comment in the comment box - like your name and subject you teach 6. After that it falls the the organizers of this wiki to approve the new members. It should take no more than a day for us to approve you. 7. Once you've been approved just sign in to the wiki and begin contributing.
 * For Starters**

To contribute, or edit some of the information on this wiki all you need to do is go to the page that you want to contribute to, or change, and click the Edit This Page button. That will open up a simple text editor and you can begin typing. When you're done just click the Save button and you work is saved to the wiki. Don't worry about making a mistake or messing something up... wikis are designed to make it easy to fix the mistakes. As you're just getting started with wikis, experiment with the features in the editor. Though, until you feel more comfortable, I'd stay away from putting in Widgits for now.
 * Wiki Features:**
 * Contributing / Editing**

On wikis you have the ability to see all of the recent changes to either the whole wiki or to an individual page. To see who has made recent changes, just click on the "Recent Changes" link at the top to see changes made to the whole wiki. If you're interested in seeing who has made changes to a particular page, simple go to that page and click the "History" link at the top.
 * Saving the changes...**

At the top of the page there is a link titled discussions. This is a place on each page that people can have discussions and not worry about altering the main content of the wiki. Here is where many of the questions and answers should be posted, rather than on the wiki.
 * Discussions**

Do I have to constantly log in to see if there are any changes or comments to the wiki? No you don't. The link at the top titled "Notify Me" allows you to arrange to have notices of updates and discussions sent to you either through e-mail of through a RSS reader, like Bloglines, PageFlakes,GoodleReader and others. This notify me like will only notify you of changes and discussions made to a particular page. If you want to keep tabs on ALL the updates and changes made to the Wiki you will need to do that by clicking on the Recent Changes link and then clicking on the Notify Me link. This will allow you to subscribe to ALL the changes made to the Wiki rather than just one page.
 * Subscribing to the Wiki**

On the left side of the page is a menu of all of the main pages so far within this wiki. It is possible to have thousands more and to simply link them through the text on each page. Getting to a main page is just a matter of a mouse click.
 * Navigating through the Wiki**

Okay, so you want to create a new page- great! To do that you can simply click the New Page link at the top. This will ask you to give the page a name. After you name it and tell it to create it is ready for you to begin adding text. Another way to create a page is while you are in the text editor. Simply select the text that you want to link one page to another and click the link button in the editing toolbar. You then have several options: 1. Creating a new page 2. Linking to an existing page in the wiki 3. Linking to an external web site.
 * Creating a New Page**

To edit the navigation means to either add or remove a link to a main page. To add one simply type the text for the link anywhere you'd like. Select the text and click the link button in the editing toolbar. Then you can link it to an existing page. When you're done just remember to save your work.
 * Editing the Navigation (The list of main pages)**

At the moment the largest file that we can upload has a file size of 10 megabytes. This is more than sufficient for simple pictures, but can be frustrating for audio or video clips. Have no fear, if it's an online video we can simply link to that video online - linking to say a YouTube or Teacher Tube is easy. All we need for those is the information given in the small "embed this link" box on the page the video comes up. Pictures we can either upload them from our computer or we can link to them from another site - just like the videos. If we upload the pictures they are stored in the online space of our wiki. Please only upload pictures that you're actually going to use. This is not a place to simply store all of your pictures, because we do have a limit on our space - though it's a considerably large space for pictures, we still have a space limit. To add the picture to you entry all you need to do is click on the add picture button, find the picture in the gallery that you want, and double click on it. It will then be inserted into your post wherever you cursor was.
 * Adding pictures and other media...**

Wikis can be an incredibly powerful learning tool when placed in the hands of the students. Yes, the students. The design and implementation of Wikis is such that they only succeed with collaboration. When using Wikis in class, try to keep in mind that if you, the teacher, needs to act as the guardrails on the highway - keeping the kids on track, but the kids are the ones behind the wheel of the car. As the organizer of the wiki, you can see who has made changes and when. However, the most powerful part of the wiki is that you have the ability to control who can edit the material.
 * Student Directed Learning**

A couple of example for this use is to allow the students to create their own textbook for the class by using the wiki. As the school year progresses they can contribute to the material and even present the information in the chapters to one another. It may even be possible to create tests based off of the material that the students include in their textbook.

Any class or group project can be worked out on a wiki. As the teacher you can provide a starting page for each of the groups in your classroom wiki. From there the student can then take the lead and manage their project through the wiki.