Classroom Wikis and Professional Portfolios

It is a "best practice" for classroom teachers today to use a website as a learning portal for links and resources related to class studies. In this learning module we'll learn the difference between blogs and wikis, explore examples of K-12 exemplary classroom wikis and professional portfolios, as well as tools for creating educational wikis.

Definitions

    1. Blog: A website which includes time/date-stamped entries, usually displayed in chronological order with most recent posts shown first. (WikiPedia definition)

    2. Wiki: A website which can be quickly edited using a web browser and login credentials. Special webpage editing software is NOT required. (WikiPedia definition) Think of a wiki as an online document which can be created independently (like this website) or collaboratively (like WikiPedia)

Questions?

Exemplary, Interactive Classroom Wikis (Learning Portals)

Exemplary Professional Portfolios (by educators, using wikis)

Platform Options for Wikis

  1. PBWorks

  2. Weebly

  3. Flavors.me

    1. Glogster can be used to add multimedia content to your wiki. (It can serve as your website, or you can embed Glogs into other websites)

  4. MediaWiki

      1. Free and open-source, but must be hosted on a server you rent or your school provides

      2. Examples:

      3. WikiPedia

      4. Storychasers Wiki

      5. Teaching Children Philosophy

More Resources

See Joyce Valenza's outstanding resource page for "Wikis" on her New Tools Workshop wiki.

Content for this resource page was adapted from "Share Your Ideas: Platforms for Publishing" by Wesley Fryer.