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Wikis

Elementary School 2.0

Jul 16th, 2009
by pollyalida.
1 comment

Buffy Hamilton (The Unquiet Librarian) posted some great examples today of how elementary schools are using social media to communicate with faculty, parents & students. Read her post!

I wanted to highlight two of her examples from Christina Bentheim at the Dickens Elementary School in North Las Vegas, NV.

1: A wiki page chock full of resources for teacher, parents & students and with a great Glogster graphic as an interactive front page.

2: Her NetVibes information portal full of subject resources, a parenting section, teaching resources and more.

Updates to Wikispaces

Jan 2nd, 2009
by pollyalida.
No comments yet

Wikispaces has a fresh new look to their site and has added some new features. And they’re still giving away ad-free wikis to educators.

New:

  • Create user accounts on your own: If you have an educator account, you can now enter up to 100 usernames (with or without email addresses) and Wikispaces creates user accounts and passwords for you. Great option for getting your students connected to your wiki in a hurry.
  • All your wikis are easy to get to from the green arrow at the top of every screen. Used to be a bit hidden on the side toolbar.

And though this isn’t new, it’s worth noting that Wikispaces makes it incredibly easy to incorporate content from other web services, including:

  • photos & slideshows
  • audio & video
  • chat sessions
  • RSS feeds
  • maps
  • polls
  • and much more.

23 Things at the Connecticut State Library

Oct 7th, 2008
by pollyalida.
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The Connecticut State Library launched 2.0@CSL last week, a 23 things Learning 2.0 project for State Library staff.

Kris Abery, Sharon Clapp and Nancy Peluso were the masterminds behind the project and have done a terrific job putting this program together. The project will run for 13 weeks and is using a wiki as it’s ‘base of operations’. There are over 50 staffers signed up already. Yay!

I’m a frequent visitor to the CT State Library and am really excited to see this project underway. I hope they’ll be able to roll it out for library staff all over Connecticut in the near future.  Kudos to Ken Wiggins, CT State Librarian, for supporting and encouraging this project.

Wikispaces: 100,000 Free K-12 Wikis – and 250,000 More!

Sep 9th, 2008
by pollyalida.
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2 1/2 years ago, Wikispaces committed to giving away 100,000 ad-free, private, unlimited use wikis to K-12 educators. They reached that number this weekend. And are ready to start on the next 250,000! Wow.

250,000 More K-12 Wikis Like the first 100,000, all of our K-12 wikis feature all the benefits of our Plus service:

  • full privacy, only the people you allow in can see your wiki
  • no advertising, your online classroom will remain ad-free
  • unlimited use, as many users, pages, edits, and files, as you like, no limits
  • a customizable look and feel, so you can make it feel like home

Share Your Wikispaces in Education Story: Have a great story about how you’ve used Wikispaces? Share it!

Britannica Wiki Buzz

Jun 10th, 2008
by pollyalida.
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If you haven’t already heard, Encyclopedia Britannica is launching a new wiki-based web service. Scholars will be encouraged to contribute content. And users will be able to contribute as well.  Content meeting the EB’s publishing standards will be labeled with “Britannica Checked” to distinguish it from other content. What an interesting tool this could become.

Do take a look at Joyce Valenza’s terrific post about this. From Joyce’s post:

If Britannica is able to attract scholars to its portal, if it is able to connect academic collaborators, if it is able to make breaking research available, as well as protected, if it is able to avoid the lengthy delay of formal academic publication, then everyone benefits.

I couldn’t agree more. Here’s hoping they can do all that!

A beta preview of the site is currently available.