Teacher's dashboard

I have a free pbwiki which I use as the link page for students and families, so they cannot edit those pages at all. I have also used team wikis so only teams of students can have access to those wikis. I login at the beginning of the day for those so I don't need to change the password. The pages can be public for families to view also. For a class of 20, the team idea may work well for you.

In my premium wiki, I lock some of the pages so students cannot edit them.

Also, although I have low computer ownership among my students, almost all families have access to a computer somewhere -- work, friends, relatives, etc.

Internet safety lessons are a must; internet literacy is also. I also have only had a few inappropriate items, just in the storytelling, though. Not in the bullying aspect. Students don't use their names; we use a code name or initials.

Wikis are such a powerful tool. Thanks for your input.

Sheri,
I take your "password of the day" to be a notice up in the room that changes/announces the contributor log-in; this allows your wiki to be at the free intro level. Their work can be public because you have nipped password sharing.

I hope many teachers will respond to this thread and others so I can try out many classroom uses. There is another [earlier] thread here with good discussion and education use sites. (It's hard to balance the read-a-lot vs. do-a-lot ways of change... for me.)

I'm a 5th grade general ed teacher w/20+ students. I have a pbWiki premium v1 wiki and had planned to move to the v2 model to improve my control and oversight. I have the wiki set to be public because I want to train families to view the work of the students and use the site for the kind of information that goes home in [innumerable] paper notices that get lost. (We have low household computer use by students where I teach, however.)

So I want to have writing go up and other material I can scan/copy in a photo. I want to create a newsletter format that teaches the difference between opinion and reporting. I plan to have the classroom information: job descriptions, student list, homework, rubrics, reference materials, etc. always available up at the front of the room. I want the kids to share their favorite learning sites.

More importantly I want the community at large to see the work of their children! That and info families need will increase the use of the 'net at home. Many local families are unsure about/outright scared of the Internet. I spend time teaching Internet safety, despite that fact that it doesn't fit into the requirements I have to follow under NCLB.

An example of oversight needed was the time I saw a student name changed to a negative comment on the navigation page providing links to student personal pages. I found the change on one of my e-mailed notices, and that notice tells me that it was student so-and-so. However, what if the kids realize that they can claim to be someone else entering the wiki?

I realize that if this is all the problem I have had since my recent introduction of pbwiki I am not doing too badly, but I shut off the contributions until I work out a new process.

Jonathan

I post my lesson plans for students and parents for all my classes, grades 5-8 writing. I provide student descriptions on the wiki and some downloads for parents and students.

My 7 old classroom computers are set up with a wiki home page from which students can link to assignments, follow directions with links to research sites, and compose assignments independently or collaboratively.

I love the easy editing without a need to print out papers. I created a list of daily passwords so I keep the site within in my control. That makes the wiki an extension of our classroom. The computer lab also links to the wiki, and I can provide the IT with the password.

The more I incorporate the wiki features (edit/comments/visibility), the more I will include it in assignments. I really appreciate the ease of use.

I use wikis in my math classes where each course has a separate wiki. I use the wiki to maintain some of the introductory course documents and a calendar. Students maintain the chapter pages, by creating a study guide for each chapter. We also maintain a questions pages were we answer each other's questions. My geometry classes recently used the wiki to work on a partner project.

I use wikis for several classes. I teach second year programming and used wikis for software engineering projects. I have used wikis in general education math courses where students played a research game.

I am currently creating paging of 'get back to me' questions and ask students to post comments as to the answers.

I will be using wikis this semester to in my calculus 3 course.