PennEduTech

Editor’s note: This blog entry was written by Lisa Minetti, Curriculum Design and Assessment Specialist at the College of Liberal and Professional Studies.

Julie Nishimura Jensen, faculty member in Classical Studies Department and Director of the Post-Baccalaureate Program in Classical Studies in the College of Liberal and Professional Studies, is using a wiki in her Blackboard site to streamline the scheduling of advising sessions and office hours. She says,

I have to say that I’m really loving my wiki office hours sign-ups. It has made my life so much easier – no more back-and-forthing to figure out times for everyone; I just post time slots and they sign up. My students seem to like it too; I worried that it would make things too formal – I like the option of people being able to drop by – but it’s much more efficient for them to know for sure that they will have some face time. I think it could be really useful for other people too!

How to Create a Wiki in Blackboard
Before you can add the wiki tool to areas of your Blackboard course site, you first need to configure it. Go to the Course Tools area in the Control Panel and click on Configure Wiki. You’ll see lots of options for authoring and editing permissions and access dates. Choose which best suits your needs, click OK, and then add it to your course site as you would any other tool.

To highlight its functional significance for Advising Meetings and make it easy to find, Julie added it right to her navigation menu.

If you’d like help making changes to your Blackboard site, send an email to the Penn Blackboard Support.

What other ways can you envision wikis streamlining your teaching practice?

Editor’s note: This blog entry was written by Lisa Minetti, Curriculum Design and Assessment Specialist at the College of Liberal and Professional Studies.

New to social media tools and web 2.o technologies? Check out Common Craft: Explanations in Plain English.

Common Craft owners Sachi and Lee LeFever are

dedicated to building a library of videos that are focused on helping influencers and educators create change through better explanations. Our videos are short, simple and focused on making complex ideas easy to understand.

Want to learn more about wikis? blogs? podcasting? social networking? You can find the free, online versions of their videos on The Common Craft Show.

Check out this four-minute video on wikis, for example. Ed Dixon describes how he uses wikis in his classes. How might you use wikis in your instructional practice?