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.
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I completely agree with what you said about Wetpaint. I looked that one up, too. It's funny that you mention the prob with the sign in/sign out. I had the same prob but didn't consciously think about it till you said something. I wish that they could make it more obvious. I think that Wetpaint would be a better website to use for ESL students thank Google sites because it's more straightforward and like you said, it offers help along the way. As far as posting blogs, I saw something where you can add pages onto the homepage but I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about. I'm still trying to play around with the website, too.
ReplyDeleteI agree that each wiki is slightly different in terms of how to use it. I feel the same... I need more time to get familiar with Wikis before teaching it to my students. It sonds that Webpaint is very interesting. I wish to explore it in near future. Thanks for your info...
ReplyDeleteKrysta, I also agree that wetpaint is straightforward and very welcoming to someone who has never experienced creating a wiki. I also appreciate the fact that there was no information overload but that there was additional information that was easily accessed if one wanted to know more about how to maintain the wiki sight.
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