Wikis

I've set up a wiki for my Introduction to Kinesiology class. Last time I taught online, students had a very difficult time with a required (SLO) postural assessment assignment. I have turned the class into a hybrid class and we will do part of this assignment in the classroom. However the preparation for the assignment will be done through the wiki.

We need to learn some anatomy and which specific exercises can correct three postural distortions. I am having the students create a wiki that will have all the specific exercises they need for the assignment. It will take us four weeks to create the wiki.

Technical issues:

I am using PBWorks http://pbworks.com/ for the wiki. I went to a Flex workshop with Donna Marques: Build a Quick Wiki: Hands on. I signed up for a free educator wiki and I actually designed the first part of the wiki in the workshop.

The user interface is very easy to use. Most of my students did fine when I directed them to the help videos and user documentation that PB Works provides. I have copied this information at the bottom of my post.

One drawback is that you can only have one student editing a page at a time. I set up 8 pages with about 5 students per page. I think this has solved this problem. I do have 2 students who say they can't get on to edit their wiki and I've asked them to try a different computer and make sure another student is on the page so we will see if that works. The MiraCosta help desk could not help them at all.

I did have one take charge student who set up separate pages for every student assigned to her page. sigh.... This of course defeated the collaborative effort I was hoping to foster making it more cumbersome for students to view other group members work. I did ask them not to do that for week 2.

Donna gave us a great youtube about wikis that I embedded in blackboard and the wiki itself for those who had never used one before. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

There are example wikis on the PB site. If you would like to check out my wiki, let me know and I will add you to our members. Remember I am 'beta testing' this idea so look at it with a forgiving eye. Any suggestions would be appreciated. mpreti@miracosta.edu

Get Great Ideas!

• Learn what makes a good collaboration project and see how other PBworks customers are using their workspaces. Check out ourPBworks educator community (not a support forum).

Need Help? We're here for you:

• The PBworks Manual and 30-second training videos can help show you how to edit, add videos and invite users.

• The best way to get your support questions answered is to click the help link at the top of this page. Our support gurus will get back to you asap.

Making videos is easy with Jing!

I participated in the workshop that Robert Kelley gave on Jing. This is really a fast way to make short videos for your class.

After the workshop I created 6 short videos on various aspects of my syllabus. There is no editing. This is great, because it kept me from spending hours on each video trying to make them perfect. One thing that really helped was the tutorial from a Palomar college site http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/ that reminded me how to embed the videos into blackboard.

My next task with Jing will be teaching the students how to use a Wiki.