Wikispaces Connecting Teachers, Students and Parents
June 25th, 2008 by Bisma
Robin Phares and Kathy Korty, of the Edgewood City Schools, were introduced to Wikispaces in a class on technology in the classroom. After recognizing the potential of using wikis in the classroom, they set up a training session for every teacher in their district, and began using wikis to facilitate communication between students, parents, and teachers.
Each teacher has a wiki which includes contact information for the teacher, the class agenda, and classroom rules. “One of the advantages we are seeing in our middle and high school is that if a teacher posts their assignments, there is no excuse for students not to do the work. If they lose their worksheet, it is now their responsibility to print themselves out a replacement.†Teachers have also used their spaces for collaborative learning projects, such as classroom stories and homework help.
By creating an effective network of wikis, parents, teachers, and students can easily keep up with what is going on in just a few clicks. The school can inform parents about the upcoming standardized test, and teachers can use wikis to share material and facilitate professional development. For example, all teachers in the district have access to an astronomy space which they can use in their classrooms as they please. Wikispaces was also used to familiarize teachers with new technology introduced to the district.
Robin sums up their experience as, “We believe that for classroom teachers, Wikispaces is a medium that just cannot be beat. It has become a very helpful tool for our administration, faculty, and students. Using Wikispaces is infectious; every time we design one we come up with more ways to use them.â€
that is the coolest thing on wikispaces
How do I access this teacher wiki?
Jill,
The green links you see in the blog post go to some of their spaces. However, you can also go directly to http://edge-wiki.wikispaces.com/ to see their main space.
Best,
Sarah
could you please tell me how you put the pencils on the navigation bar of your wikispace?
thanks
Julie
Julie, We use http://www.flashvortex.com/index.php to create the buttons. Once your buttons are created you will receive an embed code.
We think it really dresses up the wiki.
Glad you like them.
I only learned about wiki yesterday. From what i have seen of what u guys r capable of; well what can i say??? This looks fantastic…can’t wait to try this out. I’ll be intouch for adivce i’m sure.
Thnx 4 sharing & all the best
Your article would be a very good introduction to teachers wanting to learn more about this new way to communicate and share information with other teachers, students, and parents. I just learned about Wikispaces today and found it fairly easy to create a wiki.
Thanks
Cheri’
This is pretty cool. I need to play around with it some to figure it out. Great way to communicate, set up meetings, etc.
This is just like TeacherWeb.com
Wonderful idea! Have you used the wiki spaces as a tool for an online learning community with staff members? Staff developments? Look forward to hearing any suggestions.