Using the SmartSite Wiki

Have you ever used the wiki tool in SmartSite? It’s basically your own web page within the classroom, which means you have a ton of flexibility of how and why you use it. You can put videos, photos, or written lectures on these pages, or you can use them to facilitate online discussions. You could also have your students use it to collect information for group research projects. The benefit of a wiki is that it is a collaborative space – you can add to it, and so can your students, and this means you can share multimodal information and collaborate in a way that extends beyond verbal or textual communication.



In my graduate seminar, my professor uses a wiki as a database of websites related to literacy and technology; because it’s a wiki, the class participants are encouraged to add to this database as we discover additional resources.

If you’re new to the Wiki, check out the Wiki Editing Quick-Start Guide. Getting the page set up only takes a couple of clicks, and adding your content is pretty painless. The quick-start guide also gives great tips about how use basic HTML (i.e., how to bold and italicize, or how to add hyperlinks and images). There are also instructions on how to input tables, bullet-lists, and numbered outlines.

We live in an exciting time where technology is opening doors to new modes of communication – why not try reaching your students in an innovative way this quarter?

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