Weekly Activities

 

Week Four

Feb. 4 – Feb. 10

 

Participant Wikis: Take a look to get ideas for your own wikis.

 

Wikis for collaborative learning in ESP classrooms

 

Co-Moderators: Debby Lee and Jen MacArthur

• Introduction to Wikis – wiki types and their uses in an ESP classroom.
• Wiki tutorial video - Watch the video, Wikis in Plain English, by Common Craft.
• Information about wikis and using pbwiki.com, wikispaces.com, or wikidot.com with examples from ESP classrooms in law, business, and Engineering.
• Start your own ESP wiki, using pbwiki.com, wikispaces.com, or wikidot.com

 

 

Let's begin our introduction to wikis with one of our favorite YouTube videos. Even in Medieval Norway, people had tech problems. Watch the following video from the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (with English subtitles) as a monk tries to understand the new technology of the day. All new technology can seem overwhelming at first, but we hope that these EVO course will help you feel brave enough to try out a few new resources in your teaching.

 

 

Week Four Assignments

1. Review the wiki comparison chart below and decide which wiki best fits your needs as an ESP educator. Debby and Jen prefer PBWiki; whereas, Buth prefers Wikispaces. If you decide to use PBWiki, then please remember to sign up as an educator so that you have an advertisement-free site.
2. Read this page, especially choosing a wiki, and skim some of the resources on the Wiki section of the resources page (Resources) to get an idea of how wikis have been used for other classes. You might also want to take a look at the following two wikis (one by Jen and Debby) and the other used by Debby for an LLM class she teaches each summer. [Online Learning 101 and  Vanderbilt Pre-LLM Summer Program].
3. Read the following article about Web 2.0 applications (including wikis) for educators. Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs! Oh, My! What Is a Faculty Member Supposed to Do? from Educause.
4. Choose the wiki you want to use to set up your site. Jen and I can give better advice about PBWiki. Buth can help with Wikispaces.
5. Now set up your wiki. The initial phase is just like setting up an email account. Go to the appropriate website, PBWiki or Wikispaces, and sign up for a page.
6. We will also practice adding photos, audio, and video to the wiki pages. However, if you don't have pictures, audio, or video to upload, a WikiSandbox has been created at the bottom of this page with sample photos, audio, and video for you to use to practice uploading, resizing, and organizing your website.
7. You will be able to copy the photos, audio, and video to your desktop and then upload them in whatever wiki you choose to create.
8. We will help you create a peer editing component using your wiki with a partner from the class--wait for further details via the YahooGroup. If you are particularly interested in the wiki week and have set your YG account to digest or special notices only, you might want to change your setting for this week to individual emails.
9. Share your wiki via Twitter, YahooGroups or the Web 2.0 for ESP blog (comment on the wiki week post).

 

	PBWiki http://pbwiki.com	WikiDot www.wikidot.com	Wikispaces www.wikispaces.com
Cost	Free (Basic Version only) Silver ($10/month) Gold ($25/month)	Free (some premium paid options available)	Free (Basic version) Plus ($5/month) Super ($20/month) Private Label ($100/month)
Site Type	fee-based, but basic free version	Open Source	fee-based, but basic free version
Storage	10 MB (basic) (file uploads) 2 GB (gold) (file uploads)   Unlimited pages and revision	100MB (file storage) 5MB file size for uploading   Unlimited pages and revision	Free (10 MB upload; 2 GB storage) Plus (50 MB upload; 5 GB storage)   Unlimited pages and revisions
Ease of Use	10/10 for ease of use Click & Point + HTML editors	8/10 (after a moderate learning curve)	9/10 for ease of use
Private or Public View	Private or Public	Private or Public	Private or Public (but must choose the Plus plan to activate private option
Languages	English, German, French, Spanish (instructions only)	English, German, French (instructions only)	Multiple Languages (instructions only)
Editing	Visible as you work in Click & Point Mode (WYSIWYG)	Not visible as you work	Visible as you work (WYSIWYG)
Ads or Not	None on Educational Version	None	Yes on free version
Site Manager	Excellent	Good	Excellent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choosing a Wiki

Once you choose and learn how to use a wiki, it is difficult to make the switch. Think about what you need, how much money you have to spend, and how long the Wiki Company has been in existence before you start.

 

1. What do you want to do with the wiki? Look at some of the example sites for each wiki you are comparing.
2. Do you want to upload large files? Look at the file upload limitations. 1 or 2MB limitations will not be of much use if you plan to upload large videos.
3. Do you want to add audio?
4. Can you embed HTML files? You will become comfortable with technology and want to do more?
5. How good are the forums? Look around. You will see the kinds of problems other people are having.
6. How much money do you have to spend? If you need a totally free site and more than 10MB of space, then you will have to move to WikiDot, MediaWiki (or many of the other wiki sites out there).
7. Is the Wiki company going to be around for the long haul? How long have they been in existence? Do they have major backers? How are they paying for the storage you are getting for free?

 

Wiki SandBox

If you do not have your own pictures or audio files to play with, then you can use some of these files. Remember when you upload pictures to your own wiki, you need to resize them so that you don't take up too much of your space.