Ideal PBwiki Features Group Project

 

Ideal PBwiki Features Group Project Instructions Group members Improvements Features

 

Instructions

 

 

This page is soley for the exchange of ideas about improving the use of PBwiki for your classroom.  Place your ideas in the Improvements section below.  While reading the list, you find a remedy for the Improvements section (in other words, that does exist on PBwiki) then move that to the Features section and explain where and how it can be done.  Please add your name and a way to contact you under the Group Members section.

 

 

Group members

 

• Clinton (e-mail me)
• Ian Sutherland (friend of mine who uses PBwiki as a daily part of his classroom.  Also is in contact to the creators of PBwiki)
• David (dgabriel@athensasd.org)
• EDUC 463

 

 

Improvements

Use this section to tell us what you would like to see be part of PBwiki.  Don't worry if it's already a feature, as we discover more about it, we can place these in the Feature section below.  Be sure to place your ideas in bold and tell us what you are thinking about that idea and site specific examples if at all possible.

 

Imrovement idea 1

Explanation.

 

Idea: I'm extremely new to this, so what about videos and pictures? Does it work like building a webpage?

 

Improvement Idea 2

Deb:  More options for template designs would be an improvement since people are more apt to read something that "looks nice" with bright colors and/or designs.

 

Linda: Wish I knew what I was doing?

 

Improvement idea 3

It would be nice to have a feature that tells you who is logged on.  So once logged on, it should show your username (Sharon Mercer)

 

I NEED speel check! (Sharon Mercer)

Bad spellers of the world untie! (Larry)

 

Grammar check would be nice as well (Brett)

 

Improvement Idea 3

Vickie:  I am surprised that this doesn't incorporate a spell/grammar check...or can it?

 

Improvement Idea 4

Brett:  Could a feature be put on that would allow us to know who made the edits to each of the pages?  That would allow each of us to know when and who makes the edits.  This would help students stay accountable and allow us to monitor this more closely. 

Larry:  This could be useful if the class were small, but receiving emails from 100's of students who are editing could be very difficult to manage.

 

Features

In this section we will take improvement ideas that we find are already features.  We will cut them from above and move them here along with the explanation on how to get to that feature.  This section may need some subsections, for example, free PBwiki features, premium account settings, etc.

 

Deb:  I like that the editing portion of the Wiki is set up like a Word document.  Even those of us who are "challenged" have some familiarity with basic word processing skills!

 

To idea 1: It is not like editing a web page...it is more like editing a word document that you can place interactive web content into. So, you can add video and pictures.  To add those elements you would need to either upload them to your pbwiki account and insert them using the "Attach file" button, or use the "Insert Image" button....also, you can use the Insert Plugin option and use a Google Gadget...there is a YouTube google Gadget where you could have a video playing inside of the page...Seriously, through Google Gadgets you are limitless in what you can do on any given wiki page.

 

To Sharon: I'll check to see if spell check is on the paid version or not...

 

To Brett:  You can see who has made modifications to the page...  At the very bottom right hand side of the page (in view mode) you will see a link next to the name of the person who has made the most recent changes. The link is called History.  When you click on that, you can compare to other pages to see exacly what changes can be attributed to that person...and if a major issue has come up...you can 'roll back' to the most recent page change that does not contain the inappropriate. or inccorect changes on it.  Hope this makes sense :)

 

To Deb: You do have more choices of template options and 'skins' in the paid version.

 

To Linda: You can know what you are doing!!  You can check out the PBwiki Tour to find out how to use this thing and know what you are doing!

 

 Diane Shedden-Wolf

 This would be a great idea if every student had a computer.  The students would not even have to come to school. You know when you have that one student that you pray that he will be absent everyday that you have him. Here's the solution. Home-bound wiki student.   All of the trouble students could take a computer home and still get what they missed and the assignments for the day.  You will have a perfect class now.