Thing #17: Your Turn with the Wiki

Thing #17: Firsthand Wiki experience!

"Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play and experimenting. For this discovery and exploration exercise, we’ve set up a whole new wiki for you to play with: Fontana Regional Learning Wiki, hosted at pbwiki.com.

For this explore-and-play-with-wikis exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two to the Fontana Regional Learning Wiki. The topic of this wiki is simple: Your Favorites! Favorite books, hikes, restaurants, etc. All you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To make sure you get credit for this exercise, please post a link to your learning blog on the Favorite Blogs page.

For help on using wikis, see these links:

• PB Wikistyle: If you need help with HTML or the wiki codes, try this.
• PB Wiki Help: A series of how-to/troubleshooting videos to choose from. (Be sure that sound is on!)

Access the Fontana Regional Learning Wiki and look around. Choose the page you want to edit and sign in using the left hand option. See picture below!

The key (password) for this wiki is "FontanaJMS" -- make sure you capitalize the correct letters. Then just enter your name and email address to be able to continue. These measures prevent anyone from vandalizing or messing up our wiki. You don't have to create a new account if you do this.

To get credit for Thing #17:

1) After you've signed in as mentioned above, add your blog to the

Favorite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there. It's easy to do: Type in your blog's name, highlight that text and click the link button in the composer's toolbar (it looks like a little chainlink floating over a globe). A window will pop-up--change the link type from "Wiki page" to "URL" and paste your blog's URL into the window that appears and click okay. When you're all done editing, click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page. That's it!

2) Add at least one favorite to another of the wiki's pages. And if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a new page for a review of the favorite item you're posting. If you do, be sure to link to this new page so others can find it!

3) Finally, create a post in your blog about the experience and what was easy/troublesome/fun/frustrating/etc.