Lesson Objectives

• Review using PBWiki

Outline

I have found PBWiki to be very easy to use.  The free version provides sufficient functionality to make this a useful classroom tool.

I think before using this with students the teacher would need to introduce the concept of Wikis and their purposes.  With the plug-ins it woudl be very easy to create a cluttered page that looked visually good, but probably hindered collaboration.

For me, Wikis are about collaboration and communication.  PBWiki allows students to work togther, combining text and images.  With limited storage space, the use of an online image storage facility like Picasa or Flickr would be helpful.

Embedding a PowerPoint might be useful, or a piece of video and asking students to comment on this. 

A Wiki could be used to create a recipe card in Design & Technology - Food.  The students could video the process of preparing the food, list ingredients and methods.  Images of finished dishes could be included with elemenst of peer assessment.  The BBC 'Get Cooking' pages could provide inspiration.

I think it would be easy for most teachers to identify ways a Wiki could be used with their classes.  I think that there is something to be said for keeping it simple.  Ultimately, with a Wiki being a tool of (student) collaboration, it will be up to the student how complex the finished? page becomes.

I think Wikis have great potential to be used with classess to aggregate knowledge and understanding of topics being discussed.  They support collaboration in a new and innovative way that coudl appeal to many students.

The greatest value of PBWiki to most teachers I would guess is the simplicty of its use, the password protection and the rich tect editor to enhance the appearance of text and images.