With the announcement of the 2011 Edublog Award winners, there are now two more award-winning wikis in the Wikispaces community. And we couldn’t be prouder! ICTmagic First place for the 2011 Best Educational Wiki went to Martin Burrett for his ICTmagic wiki. It’s a truly inspiring collection of IT resources for students and teachers, and it’s sure to give you more ideas than you could possibly have time to try. ICTmagic was also our Featured Wiki last August, so you can read more about it in Martin’s own words. Resources for History Teachers Second place went to Robert Maloy of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His Resources for History Teachers began as part of a class in 2006. Then, in the best tradition of all great wikis, it grew through the combined efforts of Professor Maloy’s students, along with K-12 educators and students from around the world, into a rich, multimedia, cross-referenced sourcebook for anyone interested in teaching or learning about history. We were also very excited to see that many of the people we have previously profiled on this blog were nominated for Edublog Awards, including Andrew Churches of the Educational Origami wiki, Gwyneth Jones of the Daring Librarian wiki, Shawn Avery of the Student Math Movies wiki, and Craig Kemp of the Ruma Tahi wiki. And congratulations to Linda Yollis, winner of the Most Influential Blog Post award, whose Educational Blogging wiki we featured in November. In fact, we want to extend our heartfelt congratulations to all the Edublog winners and nominees, across all the categories. The amazing educational content you are constantly creating and sharing all over the Web makes our work more satisfying, and inspires endless conversations around the office. Be sure to check out all the winners and nominees for yourself.

Though she’s new to wikis, Effie Kyrikakis’ bilingual Sunny Thought Project and Winners in Education wikis are generating a lot of buzz with their emphasis on positive thinking and global collaboration. We asked her to tell us about her experience: Have you had to learn something from scratch recently? Well, I have. Allow me to tell you my story. A need is born Our school has always been committed to teaching using the most up-to-date methodology and resources. So I was completely flabbergasted when I accidentally realised a few months ago that there are educators and schools around the world who are connected in different ways and actually collaborate and share resources and projects on a daily basis! Our school simply had to catch that train. But how? I had no idea whatsoever. It was obvious, though, that the ticket to this trip was a website in English where we would be able to present our school to the world and display our work and collaboration to our local students and their families — many of whom do not speak a word of English. Hard problem to solve… until I came across wikis and the idea was born to create a bilingual wiki. Challenges… Now, that was easier said than done. My greatest challenge was I had no idea how a wiki — or a blog for that matter — worked and, at the time, I would have gladly chosen to climb Mount Everest instead. (I wouldn’t suffer a mental burnout there at least…) However, our new-found Skype friends were waiting, so I finally got down to work. I found tutorials in YouTube, asked friends, slept very little for about a month and, Hurray, finally found my way around it. That wiki developed into our bilingual website, winnerseducation.wikispaces.com. It has become a huge success with our students and their parents and has been our link to the world. Although the wiki editor still drives me crazy at times, I think it is one of the best tools a school can use to present their work — for free! Unique features What makes wikis unique for me is their user-friendly design. Once you get to grasp the general idea, even a newbie like me can create a very presentable wiki, which has the added benefit of being interactive! Visitors can take part in the discussion or ask to be members. (Be careful who you approve though, as a hard day’s work can be destroyed in a jiff.) A little more digging and you can actually turn your wiki to a professional-looking website. No programming, just easy-to-use tools. Another very handy feature is members: All members are allowed to work independently, but still house together. Pages can easily be created and handled by a different member, while all members have access and can take part in the discussions. This is what inspired us to house in a wiki our new global project, What Makes Us Happy. More than ten schools from around the globe are already members and new ones are added by the day. Each of us can upload their students’ work at their own convenience. There are certainly more features to be explored that will make my life easier. Yesterday, for example, I discovered by chance that I can email all the members at once by one push of the button. Wow! I’m really thankful for this unique tool. Plus, this whole adventure has reminded me what it feels like to learn from the other side: that of the learner. This precious insight cannot but make teaching better, don’t you agree?

You’ve been working hard on your wiki. Over the past few months — or year, or years — you’ve been adding files, tweaking copy, embedding videos. And now it’s just about perfect. But, one day, your finger slips, and you delete your carefully crafted home page. Oh no! What can you do now? Well, not to worry. If you are the organizer of the wiki, you can restore any deleted pages or files from the Recycle Bin. Where can I find it? Just go to Manage Wiki and click on the Recycle Bin icon under Content. There you will see a list of all the pages and files that have been deleted in the past 30 days. And, if you are an organizer of that wiki, you can restore them to their rightful place. How does it work? Simply check the boxes for the pages or files you want back, and click the Restore button. If you’ve deleted a lot of things lately, you can narrow it down with the Search box, or Filter by Type (pages, files, or page templates). And if there are several versions of that page or file in the Recycle Bin, you can always look at the timestamp to see when it was deleted, so you know you’re restoring the right version. For example, let’s say I deleted my homepage yesterday, then tried to rebuild it this morning. But I couldn’t get it quite right so, after a frustrating half hour, I deleted the new homepage. Once I go to my recycle bin, there will be two pages called "Home." I just select the one with yesterday’s date, and click Restore. How do I permanently delete items in the Recycle Bin? You don’t have to do anything. Items in the Recycle Bin will be automatically deleted after 30 days. And items in the Recycle Bin are regarded as deleted, so they will not show up in search engine results. That being said, be aware that it sometimes takes Google and other search engines a couple of weeks to clear their cache. Once they have cleared their cache, though, the material should stop showing up in a Google search. And always remember to be responsible about items you add to a wiki — especially wikis that are visible to the public. You can learn more about your permission options here. Why can’t I see the Recycle Bin? Only wiki organizers have access to the Recycle Bin. If you can’t see it or can’t restore pages and files, you are either not logged in as organizer, or you do not have organizer privileges for that wiki. Make sure you are logged in and contact the wiki organizer to restore the page or file.

Tim McCollum helped start the eeabstudents wiki, part of the Expedition Earth and Beyond project, in September of 2010. 1. Briefly describe your group, your wiki, and what you use it to do: Our design and writing team for Expedition Earth and Beyond (EEAB) was originally composed of four educators representing three states along with the project director from the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. Since the members of the team lived in different parts of the country, most of our project development was conducted remotely via conference calls and email. As lessons and activities were written and evolved through multiple revisions, the need for a collaborative online workspace became apparent. We chose Wikispaces.com and the use of a wiki to meet that need. The project wiki became a highly useful website on which to store and review documents, images, PowerPoint presentations, and even video clips. When we eventually looked for an online tool for teams of students to participate in the project, a wiki was an obvious choice. We created a template that follows the process of scientific research; and we embed it into the new wiki that we create for each student team that chooses to participate in EEAB. 2. Besides the Edit button, which wiki feature is your favorite? One of the special features of Expedition Earth and Beyond is the opportunity for each team of students engaged in a research project to be assigned an online mentor. The mentor is typically a scientist at the Johnson Space Center — a real "rocket scientist." The mentor can follow the progress of the student team on the team wiki and communicate with the students through the discussion tool. This feature provides a wonderful opportunity for the exchange of ideas, questions, and advice between the students and their assigned mentor, and all communication is done in the public arena of the wiki discussion board. We have also created a teacher wiki for the purpose of sharing ideas and resources between different teachers who are guiding students through the EEAB project. 3. What is one way you’re using wikis and other web 2.0 tools in your projects? The goal of Expedition Earth and Beyond is to engage students in grades 5 through 12 in the actual process of scientific research. The focus of their research is Earth System Science, and their main source of data comes from astronaut photography — images of Earth features captured by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and other manned spacecraft. Thousands of these images are now archived and available online through the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Students working in teams use their own wikis as collaborative tools to conduct and share their research about specific Earth features. Their research often involves looking for visible changes to specific features by comparing astronaut images taken of the same locations over time. An added bonus of the project is the opportunity to request new images to be captured by astronauts aboard ISS to assist the students in their research. 4. Tell us about a particular moment that made you say, "Aha! THIS is why I use wikis!" One memorable moment was when a class of eighth grade students was quietly engaged in their EEAB project work and the first message from their assigned NASA mentor arrived. A student suddenly yelled out, "We have a mentor, we have a mentor!" and the rest of the students immediately turned their attention to the wiki’s discussion board to read the mentor’s introduction. It was very rewarding to see and hear their excitement upon making the initial contact with their own mentor from NASA. 5. If you could ask it, what do you think your wiki would say about you? I think that our wiki would recognize that our design and development team has worked very hard at creating a rewarding experience, and that through the collaborative tool of a wiki, teachers and students can together experience the excitement of real scientific research.

Have you ever tried to change the permissions on a file, embed a widget, or copy a page? Have you ever tried to explain it to someone else? I know I have, both on this blog and over on our help wiki. And the truth is, sometimes it’s just much, much easier to show than it is to tell. Which is why we created our brand-new YouTube channel for all our video tours and instructional videos. Not only because it gives us a handy place to share tips and instructions that might be too confusing to describe in just words, but because it lets you, our users, share these videos with your members. Take a look! And if you find something you like, then go right ahead and embed it in your own wiki. Here’s a video to show you how it’s done: Get more videos at http://www.youtube.com/wikispacesvideos. Have a suggestion for a video you’d like to see or share? Leave a comment below and we’ll add it to the list.

Let’s say you’ve assigned your students a research project, and, when they’re done, they are supposed to post the paper to the wiki. They can link right to any of their online sources, of course. And any embedded videos or widgets will probably include a link back to their origin. But what about their offline resources? What about the books and newspapers and magazine articles? Today, I want to take a look at an old-school approach to citing sources: footnotes. How does it work? Edit your page. Place the cursor where you would like the citation to appear, usually at the end of a sentence or just after a quote or technical term. Click the Widget button in the editor toolbar. From the Wikispaces menu, select Reference. Click Embed Reference Marker. In the new box that has appeared at the bottom of your page, type the citation information. You can use the buttons in the toolbar to format the text. Scroll back up to continue editing the page. Save the page when you’re done. Once the page has been saved, you’ll see a small, numbered, superscript link in your body text to the citation you just added. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see a list of your sources, with links to the portion of the text that cites them. When you edit the page again, just scroll to the bottom to make changes to the contents of your footnotes. Why are footnotes called "references"? "Footnotes," by definition, go at the bottom of a page. But the references on your wiki page can go anywhere you want to put them. For example, you might want to add a reflection area to the bottom of a research paper. If you were looking at the paper itself, it might be confusing to scroll past the reflection to check the sources. In the same way, it might be distracting to see a list of sources tacked on to the end of the reflection when they really belong to the paper above. In this example, you would want to place your reference section in between the paper itself and the reflections below: Edit your page. Place the cursor where you would like the list of references to appear, preferably on its own line. Click the Widget button in the editor toolbar. From the Wikispaces menu, select Reference. Click Embed Reference Text. You will see a tag on your wiki page that says "<references/>". Save the page. Now you’ll see your citations listed between two separate sections of content. How do I format citations? Well, that’s a tricky question. Different institutions recommend different standards for formatting citations. Ask your school or teacher if there is a standard format you should be following — they might have a prepared sheet or Web site that outlines the standards they prefer. Or you might look it up in a style guide. The MLA Style Manual, currently in its third edition, is very popular for academic writing. The Chicago Manual of Style and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association are two of the other most widely used style guides.

Last summer, we introduced Projects to make it easier to organize group projects on your wikis. This month, we’ve made Projects even more powerful by adding a scheduling component we’re calling Events. Events are an easy way to automate calendar-related actions: for example, you could set a due date that locks a Project, or send out automated announcements. Take a look: If you’ve been waiting for a feature like this, here’s how you can get started: Go to Projects in the action menu. Locate the Project you want to add an Event to, and click the number in the Events column. Click the New Event button. Enter your event information. Click Create. …and you can learn more on our new Events help page.

Tricia Fuglestad started the Fugleflicks wiki in November of 2007. 1. Briefly describe your group, your wiki, and what you use it to do: The Fugleflicks wiki has been a place to make resources available for art teachers. It began as a way to post my conference presentation resources when I talked about making movies with students. Then when art teachers began asking where to find our Fugleflicks, Student-Created Art-Related movies, I put together a rough index on the wiki and referred them back there again. Then when teachers asked me how to create animation or green screen effects in movies I began a tutorial on the wiki to show them my tricks. I was able to add screencast tutorials, files they can download to practice with, and example movies. When teachers asked for advice on how to manage students for collaborative movie-making experiences, I added my advice on the wiki as well. Then when stories started coming in from teachers about how their students love to sing along with our Fugleflicks, I decided to encourage this with karaoke pages complete with audio tracks and lyrics. Then when I heard that you can embed a glog into a wiki (boy does that sound nerdy) I had to try too. See it here. During the summer I was asked to teach an animation workshop so the wiki grew again. This page includes everything I needed to help my students animate an original superhero story. I also have a (shhhh) secret in progress page for my students where I post the song lyrics, audio tracks, storyboards, or anything they may want access to at home to prepare for movie-making at school. 2. Besides the Edit button, which wiki feature is your favorite? I love that I can embed video, audio, and attach files for others to download. I have been able to do so much with very little training with wikispaces.com to create a site that gives other art teachers access to my resources all in one location. 3. What is one way you’re using wikis and other web 2.0 tools in your projects? My Favorite Wiki was designed for a collaborative art project: A Brush with Fame based on the travels of the award-winning brush actor, Young Sloppy Brush. He traveled to an art teacher’s classroom for one week to meet all the students and share his inspiring Fugleflick video and message about caring for paintbrushes. His wiki housed photos from his travels across the country, a google map that showed updates as he arrived in his next destination, his movie page with song lyrics and a karaoke version for singing along, a google schedule, a poster, and a history page to learn about why this brush was truly wonderful. Tragically YSB’s travels ended and he went missing mid school year. My students posted a video to help cope with the loss. We are still looking for information about his whereabouts. 4. Tell us about a particular moment that made you say, "Aha! THIS is why I use wikis!" When I’m asked the same questions over and over again, the wikis give me a place to answer them and send the link. I have many wikis now and they are all about sharing resources for educators. I love that I don’t need to send an email with link after link of references, but one link to a well thought out page of references. Here are some examples: Ideas for integrating technology in art List of tech equipment for the art room Ideas for using an interactive whiteboard in art class A list of great iPad/iPod apps for art education (co-authored by Suzanne Tiedemann, Theresa Gillespie) 5. If you could ask it, what do you think your wiki would say about you? My many wikis: Fugleflicks, Fuglevision, Art is Interactive, Young Sloppy Brush, and iPads in Art, would all shout out in unison, "Please organize!" It’s true, I would have to agree with them. Wikis are very easy to start and add to. So I’ve let mine just grow and grow. So, it would be nice if things were tidied up a bit so the resources can be found quicker. But, for the most part, the wikis are happy to be up and running, they enjoy being of use, and complain very little. :)

Ryan Bowse here! I am the newest member of the Wikispaces team. With over 12 years in technology, and the last 4 years focused on helping schools better use technologies, I could not be more thrilled about joining the team. I am an East coast guy living with my wife and new son in this fantastic city by the Bay and enjoying all of what it has to offer. When trying not to blubber through parenthood, I am always looking for new fly fishing spots and the next family whitewater rafting trip. My focus here will be working with schools and districts to help them get the most out of Wikispaces. Looking forward to collaborating and engaging with you all!

Matthew Kalafat started the PWX wiki in October of 2011. You can read more about this wiki in the New York Times. 1. Briefly describe your group, your wiki, and what you use it to do: We used the wiki to facilitate a cross-town "literature circle" in which kids discussed open ended questions for Of Mice and Men. 2. Besides the Edit button, which wiki feature is your favorite? Discussions - follow up questions (is that a button?) 3. What is one way you’re using wikis and other web 2.0 tools in your projects? We use the opinions of kids from another town of totally different demographics to help us understand characters of different demographics. 4. Tell us about a particular moment that made you say, "Aha! THIS is why I use wikis!" When we went down to the computer lab as a class and we couldn’t wait to see what our "Plainfield friends" had responded. 5. If you could ask it, what do you think your wiki would say about you? Use me more — I’m awesome!