So... I'm not sure how I forgot to mention the coolest result of our Wikis in education search this week. After clicking through several levels of links and resources on one of the pages I found, I stumbled upon www.wetpaint.com
My big goal for a 'website' is to create a community of learners that includes former students, current students, and anyone else who has finished or is taking a break in their formal language education. Since the goals are building community, communication, and learning from each other, it makes sense to build a wiki.
Wetpaint was so easy to use. I was actually playing around, and not plannign on building it yet, when all of a sudden, it was done! I'll invite you all to take a look... and join... very soon. Until then, go check out wetpaint yourself.
There are two other things that impressed me about wetpaint. First, it looks great. Some of the sites I read during this week's activities critiqued wikis as being generally ugly. These wikis are organized and asthetically pleasing. Second, the tutorials and other elements of the page make it really easy to use the full potential of what wetpaint has to offer. They also really make it seem like a space for all (all those I invite, or open to all if I choose).
Okay, so check out wetpaint, and tell me what you think.
5 comments:
Eric-
You are right on the money with that site. I liked it quite a bit. The visuals on the site I spent most of my time on, Book Lust, were really just like a webpage. The Wikispaces site looks ok, but definitely basic when it comes to presentation. This actually reminded me of how people have been able to dress up thier blogs in this class. It doesn't take too much to make a big difference in the feel and ease of a site.
I have no doubt I'll be hearing more about this. Hey... probably from you. What is your wiki called?
Doug
The site is senorespinoza.wetpaint.com
Everyone in the class should have gotten an invitation to join as a writer. If not let me know, or you can go to the site and request to be a writer.
Eric,
Yes the wetpaint site is very clean and seems easy to set up (this is my pre req). I went to your site and it was great to see that a student already posted. What do they think about the wiki? What grades do you teach again? Also, did you set up an account for each student? Just wanted to see a quick preview of the process you went through with the students.
Thanks
Stefanie
I also like the design and layout. Actually, I think that the design capabilities are better with this site than with Wikispaces. However, the layout does get a little busy. It reminds me of the Moodle layout a little bit.
I tried out a bunch of the widgets. However, I believe that Wikispaces will add these as well. It might be a little easier to add them to Wetpaint. And, come to think about it, there is not widget in Wikispaces for RSS feeds.
Dan
Stephanie,
The student who posted is actually a former student of mine. I taught HS Spanish for the last 4 years, all levels. This year I am at a new school, teaching 8th grade Spanish.
I was excited that she was there. I can't wait until this summer and I have more time to get some good content on there. After I have a few basic things, I plan to invite a lot of other Spanish teachers as well as other former students.
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