Starting+a+Wiki

Starting a Wiki at McCaskey
McCaskey has a 'private label' account with wikispaces.com. This means all teachers and administrators have the opportunity to create wikis for curriculum and organizational purposes under the McCaskey umbrella.

This wiki space and domain name www.mccaskey.wikispaces.net has been purchased by McCaskey to facilitate the use of an online learning environment, specifically a wiki, for all learners in the school (teachers and students). The wiki pages and wikis made using this website will have the following basic features:
 * NO advertising
 * Choices for levels of privacy ranging from completely private to completely open to the world
 * Unlimited number of wikis
 * Up to 50MB uploads (documents, multimedia)
 * Note the difference** between a wiki page and a wiki space: a **page** is what you are reading from now. A space is a collection of wiki pages.

Step 1: Purpose of the wiki
Consider what you want the wiki to do and who the members will be. There are many different reasons for starting a wiki. Here are some:
 * To facilitate communication between teachers for administrative or curriculum purposes
 * To facilitate communication between students in a class
 * To facilitate learning and communication between the class, home and teacher
 * For student publication on a theme or topic (ex. Grade 9 digital portfolios)
 * To create a portal for a unit of work and distribute information and resources

Connecting to McCaskey site using your Username and Password

 * 1) Go to the McCaskey site []
 * 2) Click on **Join** (top right)
 * 3) Type your **Username** (same as your name in your school email address)
 * 4) Type in **Password** (Karen Gallagher-Edlund will give you the district password)
 * 5) Type your **School email address**
 * 6) Click **Sign In**

Step 3:Creating a Wiki under your Account
>> (ex.: **__gallagherclass__.mccaskey.wikispaces.net**, where **gallagherclass** is the name I chose for my main wiki)
 * 1) Click on **Make a New Wiki** on the top left navigation bar
 * 2) Type a **name** for your wiki. This should identify your class and could be your **main wiki** that your other class wikis spin off from. The name **CANNOT** have spaces, caps, or punctuation
 * The name of the web address or URL includes the name of your wiki
 * 1) Under **Wiki Permissions,** I suggest choosing Protected (you always change it later)
 * Public - everyone can view and edit your pages
 * **Protected - everyone can view pages, only space members can edit them**
 * Private - only space members can view and edit pages
 * 1) Under **Wiki Template**
 * Leave it blank.
 * Select **Create** and you are now ready to begin adding materials to your wiki. Sign in to your wiki
 * 1) Type in your **url (name of your wiki**). .mccaskey.wikispaces.net
 * At the top right, sign in using your **username** and **password**.
 * Now you are signed into your wiki and can begin editing it.

Step 4: Signing in to your wiki after it is created

 * 1) Type in your **url (name of your wiki**).mccaskey.wikispaces.net
 * 2) At the top right, sign in using your **username** and **password**.
 * 3) Now you are signed into your wiki and can begin editing it.

Step 5: Editing the wiki

 * 1) Full instructions on how to edit a wiki can be found on the edit a page on the wikispaces help page and further information is available at the wikispaces help page.
 * 2) You can also return back to my main page and view the different web pages for help on editing your wiki

Wiki etiquette and acceptable use
Any member of the wiki space can edit the wiki. This is a positive collaborative idea, but carries responsibilities.Some reasons for an edit are:
 * To add additional information
 * To change incorrect information
 * To link information from another source

When anyone chooses to edit, there is a record kept of the changes. Sometimes it is necessary to **revert** to a previously saved version. But everyone must keep in mind that it is a shared space with many different contributors. Keep in mind that the last saved copy is what the next person sees.

Revert Back to Other Saved Pages

 * 1) Click on **Recent Changes** in the Navigation bar to the left.
 * 2) You will see every saved change with the date and time.
 * 3) Click on the **View changes** of the revision you want to revert back to
 * 4) Click on **Revert to This Version** (top of the page)
 * 5) Give some fact to denote why you are going back
 * 6) Now your wiki is back to the older version

Step 6: Inviting members

 * Individual member invitation
 * Class membership
 * Standardization of member names


 * To invite members:**
 * 1) Click on **Manage Wiki** in the Navigation bar to the left.
 * 2) Under **People**you can either:
 * Click on **Members** to see who is a member of your wiki and invite one person at a time by their email address
 * Click on **Permissions** to change the level of protection on your wiki or to **change each page** from **locked** to **unlocked**, thus allowing anyone to edit that page
 * Click on **Invite People** to send an email to a group of people, inviting them to become members of your wiki
 * Click on **User Creator** if you want to add up to **100 new members** immediately to your wiki(for example, giving students usernames and passwords to a particular wiki so they can edit it)

Uses for a wiki
[|Wiki Wisdom: Lessons for Educators] Without knowing any HTML, wiki's allow students and teachers to create web pages. These pages can be edited anywhere and, if you choose, by anyone. A wiki allows for world, school, or class wide collaboration.
 * || You can use wikis in classrooms for:
 * Class Notes
 * Parental / Student Communication
 * Lesson Summaries
 * Handouts
 * Course Syllabus
 * Course Links and Resource Notes
 * School or class calendar
 * Collaboration of Notes
 * Concept Introduction and Exploratory Projects
 * Dissemination of Important Classroom Learning Beyond the Classroom
 * Teacher Information Page
 * Student written books
 * School Newspaper ||  || For students:
 * Improves editing skills
 * Writing for a purpose and audience
 * Collaborative construction of text
 * Practice of reading and writing skills
 * Higher order thinking skills
 * Is engaging and empowering for students ||