Name of Web 2.0 Application: Wikispaces

URL: http://www.wikispaces.com

I wracked my poor little brain to think how I might be able to use a wiki with my class (Academic Strategies) since we already have a weekly discussion component where students freely (sometimes too freely!) share a lot of great information. I'll admit I want to have some control over some of the topics, but realized there is one perfect place to use this tool: sharing information about careers. Since I work with students of many ages (the average age is 33), some of them are already working in the field.

And so I started a Wikispace tonight that I plan on using within a week when we start to talk about goal planning and careers. It's at http://fudgelink.wikispaces.com if anyone really wants to look. Now that you know I'm a control freak ;) you'll see I made some "rules of the road" and used the permissions page (screenshot below). By including some constraints, I am hoping not to have to check it every 10 minutes for gross violations such as inappropriate language, complaints about other teachers, and things that students tend to do when they're not being watched!

Formatting the pages has its moments of frustration. Using color and adjusting the text is not difficult, but I guess I move too quickly for the system and it locked on me a few times. Also, I'm used to Ctrl+Z undoing my last move and that doesn't work. I had to redo the Majors page several times. Maybe it's the bullets that were causing bad formatting, but I am bound to go back and make it look prettier even if it doesn't want me to.

Inviting people is pretty simple - all you need is e-mail addresses and you can even edit the message that is sent out with it. There was one glitch I thought was odd: I sent it to one of my other e-mail addresses and it said "you're already a member" ... but eventually it let me invite myself through another e-mail address. (Alpha testing!)

And so ... my use is as an extended kind of discussion board, because that concept works for my course right now. I can also see this as a place where students could collaborate on projects by using the pages feature and editing each other's work while keeping an ongoing discussion. One thing it wouldn't do as well would be to serve as a place to deposit a bunch of documents for the students, since there is a space limit.  All in all, though, I think this might be a nice addition to my course!

Features:

• Main page
• Additional pages possible
• Discussion
• Customization of text, formatting, images
• Permission setting; easy invitations
• Notification setting
• Stats and other features
• 2 GB space (we'll see how far that goes, but to start it's good)

Potential uses:

• A place to share ideas, experiences, and information outside of the classroom
• Could be used for collaborative projects (using the pages and/or discussion features)
• Can keep it an ongoing project so that future classes can read what former students said

Tamara Fudge

Kaplan University