My Wetpaint Experience

www.wetpaint.com

I went to the above website to see what it took to create a wiki, and I was pleasantly surprised at how simple and straightforward the site was. All the directions were very upfront, and there were even explanations in parenthesis to the side for those of us who have never created a wiki before. The site seemed to be sensitive to anyone who may never have created or even seen a wiki before, and the process was much simpler and user friendly than I thought possible. There was no information overload and all buttons and arrows were obvious and the font was easy to read. I made a wiki in no time.

Compared to Google Sites

I found wetpaint to be much easier to follow and much more straightforward than Google Sites when it came to opening up an account. However, I was not as confident about posting blogs on my page. There was a place to start a thread and another place that allowed me to edit my homepage, but other than that, I saw no place dedicated to getting my blogs posted. I also had trouble finding the "sign in" and "sign out" page because it was very small pushed to the top right corner.

My Confindence?

After exploring several sites about creating wikis, I believe I understand the gist of managing a wiki and posting blogs and responding to threads. Generally, the functions of each wiki site is pretty straightforward. However, I am not as confident about teaching other students how to make their own wiki page mainly because I would need to be familiar with the website we were creating our wiki with. As I already described, not every wiki creation site is the same, and I would need to familiarize myself with the website, fully understand how it works, before introducing it to other students, especially if they're are ESL learners.

Blog #1

Students who are being introduced to new design software will have difficulty with icons that represent something else. The arrow pointing left means “back to the last page,” and the arrow pointing right means “back to the latest page viewed,” which can definitely be confusing. Also, headings that also function as links may confuse someone who might not understand how they ended up on a different page, and if they don’t understand the arrow symbol, getting back to the first page will be harder. The tabs above most websites can be confusing as well. “Homepage” may not be a familiar term to learners, and they may not realize that to get back to the main page all they have to do is click on the “homepage” link.

To help language learners figure out how to navigate a webpage I would first have them explore on their own, click whatever they feel like clicking, and after a few minutes ask them what they learned based on observation. Once I have finished listening to all the things the learners have observed, I will elaborate on what they already discover and point out anything else important they might have missed. I will definitely make sure they have a handout that has all the elements of a webpage laid out and explained clearly for them.

Journey of My Blog

If you are ever curious about how to manage a blog, I will explain how by describing what the "Settings" and "Display" buttons mean. "Settings" allow bloggers to refine how they want their blog to be. They can decide whether they want it to be private or public, what time zone they follow, what language they want it in...etc. etc. And "Display" allows bloggers to put their artistic mark on their blog. They get to choose how the page is organized, what colors it will be, what design it will have...etc. etc. I probably would not get into these details if I were teaching a class of students unless we had the time to go through them. I may assign the students to go fiddle around with how they want their setting and layout to be on their own time, but I am pretty certain personalizing a blog is something that can be done outside of class.

Blogging

I found this process of creating a blog much easier than I had expected, especially since I have tried to create my own webpage before without any initial instruction, and I never figured out how to post a link.  This program is infinitely more straightforward, although it is limited as well because it does not have all the options a webpage needs.  I am pretty confident that I can teach this to children, but only if I am going through the process with them on my own screen.