Using Wikis in the Classroom

Before you can launch students on a group project involving wikis, you obviously need to explain what wikis are and their basic functionality. Students can get a quick grasp of the basics of wikis by watching this video:



And, a good article from Information Week explains How to Use Wikis for Business. If you have students watch the video and read this article before class, you can get them up to speed on the idea of wikis pretty quickly.

Naturally, the students will need a free wiki site to use for any wiki project you assign. Two of my favorites are wikispaces and pbwiki. They are both very straight forward and easy to use.

Wikis are obviously great for group projects because of their collaborative aspects. Here are a few approaches you could take:

1) Student Study Guide - Have the students create and edit pages that provide a study guide for each chapter (or topic) you cover in class. This requires explaining concepts in their own words which reinforces learning. And this type of wiki can act as a repository of knowledge that next semester's students could update and expand.
2) Wiki moderator - Have a student create and moderate a page (that other students update) for a week. The page should cover one topic from the current course content and aim to provide a comprehensive summary of the topic.
3) Battling Business Units (with apologies to Dilbert) - Have competing groups create wiki pages on the same topic. Then assign one group each week to review all the pages on that topic and combine them into one comprehensive (definitive?) resource.

And if you need some inspiration for projects or additional insight for students, check out the wiki resources below.

42 Ways to Use Wikis
Want to get started but need some inspiration?

Using Wikis with K-12 Students - Works for college students too!

Using Wiki in Education - A wiki book that provides ideas for higher ed uses of wikis. Requires log-in but access is free.

Weblogg-ed Presentation Links - Even more info on wikis.

Download Video From YouTube

Nothing is worse than having a great video from YouTube identified to start a class discussion and then finding out your network connection is down. You can avoid this unpleasant experience by installing a free product called YouTube Downloader from Biennesoft.

This freeware (no cost to use it) enables the downloading of videos from YouTube (and other sites) and saving them to FLV (Flash video) files. Now FLV files are bloody useless since it is difficult to find players to play them back. But fortunately the program allows you to convert the FLV files to more useful formats for display on devices such as iPods, iPhones, PSPs, Cell Phones, and Windows Media Player. You can even just export the sound to an MP3 file.

The software is dead simple to use. Just paste in the URL of the video and click OK to save it as an FLV file.



To covert to another format, browse to where the FLV file was stored and select it. Then choose the appropriate conversion format and click OK to convert. It couldn't be easier!



By downloading the video and converting it into an appropriate format you won't have to worry about losing your Internet connection. This also makes it handy for distributing the file via e-mail or in a course management system.

Web 2.0 Parody Video

Here's an amusing send up of Web 2.0 called Here Comes Another Bubble. It can be used to start a discussion of Web 2.0 in your classroom. WARNING: The darn song might run through your head all day!



Discussion Questions for Students:
1) What is Web 2.0? What are the key attributes of Web 2.0 applications?
2) Which of these Web applications do you use on a regular basis? Social networks (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) wikis (wikispaces, pbwiki, Google Docs), blogs, social bookmarking (digg, del.icio.us). Which sites are most useful to you and why?
3) What types of activities can't you do in the applications you are using now that you would do if the functionality were available? (This usually produces lively discussion as students say, "Hey, you can do this on blahblahblah.com!")

Building How-To Videos - For Free!

One of the best ways to learn a subject or to demonstrate mastery of a topic is to teach it to someone else. So why not assign student projects that require making videos that explain the functionality of Microsoft Office, a Web site or another application software package. And then the students can deploy the videos they create on YouTube and share their knowledge with the entire world. Now that is Web 2.0 learning in action! But since many colleges don't have a tool deployed for the students to use, a free tool for recording on-screen activity is needed.

Fortunately, CamStudio is an open source software package that is based on the widely popular (and expensive) Camtasia Studio product from Techsmith. The software is easy to install and learn to use. They even provide a handy video on downloading CamStudio. The help files in the product will get you familiar with how to use it. The recorder has simple basic functionality similar to older versions of Camtasia Studio.



This is not as fully-functional as the current version of Camtasia Studio, but the basic functionality is similar. For pure ease of use, Camtasia Studio 5 does offer significant advantages, but saving the students $299 is a big bonus for CamStudio. So have the students download CamStudio and get them creating their first videos this week!

Increase Your Blog or Web Site Functionality with Mashups

Web 2.0 is all about functionality and user input. There certainly is plenty of data available on the Web, but sometimes it isn't exactly in the format you desire. This is why mashups were born. A mashup draws data (or functionality) from two (or more) different sources and deploys them within a single tool. An example would be drawing location pictures from Google Earth and adding them to house listings from a real estate agency. Lots of mashups are created using Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) methodology.

But for mere mortals, like your computer literacy students, Microsoft has provided a site which allows the easy creation of mashups with drag and drop functionality. Popfly is a cool site which you can access for free using a Microsoft Live ID (also available for free). Once you are there, there is a handy tutorial which will have you making your first mashup, which you can then deploy on a blog, social networking site or Web page, in just minutes. But to make things even easier, just watch the video below which shows you how to make a photo carousel mashup and include it on a blog.



So turn your students loose on Popfly and see what they can create. If you are using blogs in your classes (see the Blogging Across the Curriculum blog) or have students creating their own social network on Ning, require them to make a mashup and include it on their site. You may be surprised at what they design!