why do we need a PBWorks'?

Twitter and Blogs do not support threaded discussions, which are the heart and soul of critical discourse.
Without critical discourse, education is worthless.

Therefore, education needs wikis as the vehicle for the carriage of threaded discussion forums.

Wikis are wonderful and I use them with my high-school class. Here are some benefits:

• pbWiki allows students to work collaboratively from school or at home. This means that nobody has to commit to a specific time to get together and if inspiration strikes at 2 a.m., you can add your work!
• You can see the history of a wiki, which allows teachers to accurately assess individual student work or see if a student has not contributed - something that is impossible to do with traditional group work done outside of the classroom
• Wikis can allow a student to keep a record of achievement by attaching exemplars of their work. Many disciplines, for example, education, require student Portfolios and wikis are flexible enough to use for this purpose
• pbWiki has an excellent set of security features, support and is always adding new and improved features
  
• A wiki can imitate that way that we surf the web -- you can add pages in all directions and expand as needed through internal wiki page links and external links to outside sources.
• businesses are also using wikis and knowing how to work with them will help in any future career.
• the advantage over Twitter is obviously depth - Twitter only allows brief postings
• the advantage over Blogs is collaboration, interaction and expansion - the traditional blog format involves one person writing and others leaving comments
• pbWiki allows you to take advantage of many terrific Google add-ons and other web 2.0 tools that can be embedded right into your page to create a truly multi-media site.

Wikis promote a variety of 21st century skills.  Specifically,

"Learning and Thinking Skills. As much as students need to learn academic content, they also need to know how to keep learning — and make effective and innovative use of what they know — throughout their lives. Learning and Thinking Skills are comprised of:

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
• Communication Skills
• Creativity and Innovation Skills
• Collaboration Skills
• Information and Media Literacy Skills
• Contextual Learning Skills

21st Century Assessments. Authentic 21st century assessments are the essential foundation of a 21st century education. Assessments must measure all five results that matter — core subjects; 21st century content; learning skills; ICT literacy; and life skills. To be effective, sustainable and affordable, assessments must use modern technologies to increase efficiency and timeliness. Standardized tests alone can measure only a few of the important skills and knowledge students should learn. A balance of assessments, including high-quality standardized testing along with effective classroom assessments, offers students a powerful way to master the content and skills central to success."

Source:  http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=195&Itemid=183#what_framework

Also check out http://thinkingmachine.pbwiki.com/Think+Wikis#WIKISINEDUCATION for other reasons/uses for wikis in education

I am new at PBWorks. I began using it last year with a group of year 6 students in Australia. I used the software because I wanted students to begin using online tools and present their assignments in an online environment.

I started by creating a wiki for them to learn how to wiki! It was a great opportunity for me to see just what they could do and what I coundn't! I learnt from my students.

The next wiki I created was one where they created pages based on a topic we had been studying, As a teacher, I began to see how these children learnt including who left things to the last minute and who didn't. This helped me to help the students plan thier work. The use of hyper-linking made it easier for me to check their sources as well. 

In 2009, I started a new wiki for my new class. They too have a wiki to learn how to use a wiki. They all have writer access levels to all pages. All students are welcome to create a page whenever they want. There have been no issues with pages missing or being editing incorrectly. The daily change notifications have been great for me as I don't need to search every page, every day. This is a great moderation tool for me.

I then decided to purchase a "Classroom" rather than create another basic wiki to allow my students the opportunity to write in a private location. I opened the wiki up to other teachers at my school and Teacher Educators (Education consultants)  as well. These teachers have commented on the student's work. The comments has been well received by the students.  When asked recently, the students commented that at last they felt their writing was purposeful. They were not just writing because that is what they had to do in class.  

Having said this, some students still opted to write in a book because they normally have to wait for their older brother and sisters or even their parents to get off the computer so they can have access! 

Finally, having used wikis in the classroom, there are still some basic issues for me:

• how do we provide access for all students at school when the ratio of computers to students is still too high and
• in the current world financial climate, how can parents continue to provide or even improve computer and www access at home.

I appreciate the advantages, especially after reading these posts. However, the learning curve for me and my students is quite high. I suspect it is easier for 4th graders. I have successfully used Blackboard discussion board for assignments and wonder if anyone has made an easy transition to wiki?

Twitter and Blogs do not support threaded discussions, which are the heart and soul of critical discourse.
Without critical discourse, education is worthless.
Therefore, education needs wikis as the vehicle for the carriage of threaded discussion forums.

-wirikutero

If wikis are the vehicle for the carriage of threaded discussion forums, then why is this whole discussion forum not taking place IN the wiki, but on another site altogether?

I am VERY new to all this "social" and "interactive" stuffs floating around.  I think it is cool and would love to use a wiki in my classes but I'm not quite sure how all of this works yet...

I'm hoping that will change.

I have used wikis as online collaborative planning sites for cross campus projects I am working on.  We can't get together physically in one place, but the wiki lets us plan on our own time and set up deadlines and edit each other's work.

I have used wikis to share information with others. I also developed a wiki for my church.
http://jacobchapelnewandaddedmembers.pbworks.com/

I have used a wiki for a novel I taught. Students worked with another school to collaborate and complete the assigned work. It was a terrific experience. The students have asked me to continue using the wiki for next year's students. I took a survey at the end of the four week period. Only three responses were negative. There were a lot of questions by the students as we worked on the assignments, but it was well worth the effort.
I didn't use it for blogging though. I set up a link to my school's website and they answered questions there. I didn't know how to set up a blogging area on the wiki.
I think wikis are innovative and stimulating for students.

I am Susan Haninger from Columbus, Ohio. I have been using PB wiki/Works for about 2 years. I prefer the versatility of using a wiki.  I think in some ways it is more secure especially when working with younger students.  While the student work can be seen by the public we can control the student contact with the public and the public contact with the student can be controlled.  Additionally as has been said you can still incorporate so many other wonderful tools and applications.

Shayne,

     Thank you for that answer! I am trying to keep up with the ever-changing technology available to educators and that is one of the reasons I signed up for this course. But I never had a real clear idea of why I would want to use a wiki in my classroom or what the advantages of one are over a blog.

I'm just anxious to understand the BASICS of this online program so I can get moving along.  It took me 15 minutes to figure out how to complete this simple task.  sigh

Hello,
I finished a master in public health at the university of geneva this spring.
I suggested to write my theses on a wiki (I created a pbwiki, private, with access to my tutors only, links to sources etc..) so that they could follow my work in real time and comment on it.
They didn't do that and missed out a wonderful occasion of efficient coaching, in my opinion.
Why didn't they want to explore this way of working?
Did anyone of you use wikis for coaching?
Helena

can you prove this statements?

I began using PBWorks only six months ago and have found it the most effective collaborative tool for my third graders.  That's why I'm here for camp, learning new things to share with my kids this fall.  PBWorks is priceless!