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**What is a wikispace?** **by**  **Stephanie Wohl**  **FRIT 8530**

**What is wikispaces?** Wikispaces is a hosting service based in San Francisco, CA and launched in March 2005. Wikispaces.com is one of the largest wiki host sites competing with pbworks, wetpaint, wikipedia and google sites. A wiki is a collaborative website, or group of webpages, that allow a community of users to participate in discussions, projects and edit content. According to wikispaces.com, over 6 million students and teachers have created wikis since the launch of the website in 2005. Professional development, personal portfolios, distance learning, class schedules and calendars, assignments and curriculum planning are just a few of the ways wikispaces are used in education.

**Where can you find wikispaces? ** You can find wikispaces on the internet at www.wikispaces.com.

**What does wiki mean? ** According to dictionary.com the origin of wiki is Hawaiian and means hurry; quick, fast **How is wikispaces beneficial for education? ** Wikispaces provide teachers and students with a website that is user-friendly and ready to use. Templates are usually provided as well as tutorials and online assistance. The ease of the wiki allows the user or users to spend more time on content of the project and less time navigating the use of the tool. A wiki also keeps track of all editing done to the site so a student writing a paper can organize, write, submit, and rewrite according to the teachers comments and suggestions all using one wiki page. Wikis allow students working on group projects to collaborate, organize and share ideas but also giving each person their own time to work individually to create and edit. A wiki is a way for all students and the teacher to have immediate access to their work. A new feature from wikispaces allows teachers to assign a lock time to a wiki. Once a scheduled editing due date has been reached for an assignment or project so that it is impossible to make any more edits or changes to the wiki. Other ways wikispaces can be used in the classroom: Take a look at The Cool Cat Teacher Blog Post How I use wikis. What do you do? to see how educator Vicki Davis uses wikis in education. Teachers First:Wiki Walk-Through gives a very brief but clear introduction to wikis; what it is, who uses it, how can you use it and ideas for various subjects. **How do you get started with wikispaces?**  <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Youtube is also a great resource containing many video tutorials on how to create and utilize wikispaces in an educational setting. The following video is an Intro to Class Wiki with Wikispaces.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">as a digital portfolio for student work
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">as an alternative to textbooks (much cheaper and better for the environment)
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">as a place to track, documents and manage documents
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">Go to www.wikispaces.com
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">Create a user account by picking a username, a password and enter your email address
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">You will have the option of joining another person's wiki or creating your own
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">If creating a new wiki, you will want to name it, and set the specification type (education, business, personal, etc. and then click join)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">Your account is now created and you are free to create a new wiki
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">Wikispaces offers a getting started tutorial where you can learn to edit your wiki, invite new members and more.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">The edit button is at the top right page of your wiki. Once you click the edit button you can add text, change the font, color, template design, upload graphics and images and so much more.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">The most important thing to remember is to SAVE your work. The save button will appear in the toolbar while you are in edit mode.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">media type="youtube" key="6NRbbskf3cA" height="315" width="420" align="center"

**<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 160%;">How much does a wikispace cost? ** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">A wikispace for educators and students is cost and ad free. There are also other pricing plans for individuals, larger groups, and corporations needing more space, and special features such as private label plans, SSL security, and custom themes. The three plan options are as follows:

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">$50/Year || <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">$200/Year ||
 * > <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"> ** Plan ** ||> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"> ** Pricing **  ||
 * > <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">Basic ||> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%; text-align: center;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">Free  ||
 * > <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%; text-align: center;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">Plus ||> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">$5/Month
 * > <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">Super ||> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">$20/Month
 * > <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">Private Label ||> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;"> $1000/Year Per 100 Users  ||

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">You can find various wiki sites by doing a search or you can see the links below. All sites I've listed below offer free, basic plans but some sites have more plans with other options available for a fee. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">www.wikispaces.com <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">www.pbworks.com <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">@http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/ <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">@http://www.zoho.com/wiki/wiki-education.html  <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia  <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">For more information on other Web 2.0 tools Applications, please click below to visit our <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">FRIT 8530 Class Wiki Book