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The PBwiki Back-To-School Special

Get a PBwiki with no ads!

 

 

We've been talking to educators from around the country, and you’ve told us that you don’t want ads on your educational wikis. Well, we listened to you.

 

Starting now for a short time, we're running a back-to-school special that lets you create a free educational PBwiki with no ads. To get your ad-free wiki, you must sign up from this page (http://www.pbwiki.com/edu).

 

Just one thing: Your wiki will be ad-free for 2 weeks. If you decide you like PBwiki and you tell your friends about us, we'll make your wiki ad-free permanently. That’s it!

 

Sign up now, because this back-to-school deal expires soon. To get started, create your ad-free wiki by clicking http://pbwiki.com/?ref=ed���>here.

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Q: Do you have ads?

A: Normally, we only show ads on public, free wikis. In other words, if you upgrade to a Premium wiki or make your wiki private, we don't show ads any more.

 

But we're currently running a PBwiki Back-To-School Special that lets you create educational wikis with no ads! See the top of this page for details.

 

 

A: Does PBwiki let me keep my students' information and identities safe from outsiders?

A: Yes. You can make your wiki public or private with a simple click. And no matter what you choose, a password is always required to edit your wiki--meaning only your trusted group can make changes to your wiki.

 

One more thing: When you're logged in as a trusted user, you can see who's changed what. But public users can't see the email addresses of anyone on the wiki, so your students' identities remain safe.

 

 

Q: What if one of my students posts something that's inappropriate?

A: You can always go back to an earlier version of the wiki. Because we keep all versions of a page, you can go back and forward in time very easily. Plus, you can see who made each change.

 

 

Q: Can I monitor what goes up on the wiki? What about deleting some of it?

A: Yes, you can get notified by email of every change that's made to your wiki. We even include the changes right in your email: We use green for additions to the page, and red for deletions.

 

 

Q: What's the difference between a wiki, a forum, and a blog?

A: Good question!

 

Blogs: A blog is great for 1-to-many communication; for example, a teacher posting an idea and asking students to comment on it. Think of them like an announce list, or a megaphone.

Forums: Think of forums like chat rooms or discussion lists. They're

Wikis: Wikis are excellent tools for collaboration. If you want a group to work together, use a wiki. For example, one of our popular wikis from Penn State features students writing collaborative papers. You can see a sample paper--with the professor's live feedback--here. Think of wikis like a shared online whiteboard where your students or peers can reach collective conclusions together.

 

 

Q: How much does it cost?

A: Setting up a PBwiki is free, and we offer Premium accounts, too.

 

Free accounts: Your free wiki is fully-functional and includes 10MB of space, unlimited comments and revisions, backups, and RSS feeds.

Premium accounts: Premium accounts give you more storage space, more flexibility (more customized designs), and more features (like advanced permissions, which let you designate certain people as editors and others as only readers). Other premium features include hideable pages, lockable pages, customizable CSS, and custom domains (e.g., wiki.myschool.edu).

 

You can see the full list of options and prices once you sign up for your free wiki. If you decide to upgrade, it takes about 30 seconds right from your wiki.

 

Q: Can I attach pictures or video clips?

Yes. In fact, you can attach any type of file to any page in your wiki. Just click the "Files" button. Free wikis get 10MB of storage space, and Premium wikis get from 1000MB to 5000MB to store as many files as you can imagine.

 

 

Q: How about changing the way my wiki looks? Can I customize it?

Of course. We have pre-made templates that you can use to change the look-and-feel of your wiki (just click Settings in your wiki). We also let Premium users edit the CSS of their wiki (see http://redswoosh.pbwiki.com for an example of a custom-CSS wiki.

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Questions added by Susan

1. A page was accidentally locked by a student. We couldn't figure out who it was. Can the wiki creator steal a lock any time?

 

2. How do I post a picture?

 

3. How do I post a video clip on a wiki page?

 

4. Can I change the appearance of my wiki pages?

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Questions added by Vida

 

1. Can the teacher protect the content of the pages from being changed? / Can the teacher lock pages? / Which pages can be locked?

 

2. Can the teacher protect the uploaded files from being deleted or modified? / Can the teacher lock the uploaded files?

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Questions added by Lori

 

1. How do I edit my sidebar?

 

2. Can I change the name of my "FrontPage" to "Home?"

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2-page handout for educators

 

Making your own PBwiki is as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich. In these two pages, we're going to help answer your questions about wikis. If you've been curious about how to integrate wikis into your classroom, read on. (Time to read: 2 minutes.)

 

What's a PBwiki?

A wiki is an easy-to-use web page that multiple people can edit. For example, if you want a classroom web page, you could add your syllabus and handouts right to your PBwiki in 30 seconds.

 

What else can I do with a PBwiki?

• Let your students collaborate: They can use a PBwiki to do group work or each create their own personal web page.
• Demo your work: Use your PBwiki as an easy portfolio for learning and technology in your classroom. You can create an online slideshow to demo your work with one click.
• Keep others informed: Set up a page in your PBwiki to update parents on what your classroom is doing, or to update students on changes to your syllabus. It's live and editable anytime.

 

What if one of my students posts something that's inappropriate?

You can always go back to an earlier version of the wiki. Because we keep all versions of a page, you can go back and forward in time very easily. And you can see who made each change.

 

How much does it cost?

Setting up a PBwiki is free. You get 10MB of storage space, unlimited pages, and an unlimited number of visitors. If you'd like more features and storage space, we offer Premium wikis starting at $10/month.

 

Is it easy to use?

Yes! It's as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich. It takes 30 seconds to create and you can have a classroom up and running in about 10 minutes. We have lots of templates to get you started.

 

Who controls the content?

Whoever has the password to your wiki can edit it. In other words, you control who gets access to the wiki, but once they are logged in, they can edit anything.

 

We offer advanced features like access controls, which let you designate certain people as Readers and others as Contributors. You can also lock certain pages (like your syllabus) and hide others. These advanced features are part of our Premium packages.

 

 

Will ads be shown on my wiki?

No, we don't show ads on educational wikis. (This is based on feedback from educators, which we listened to and changed our practices.)

 

Can I make my wiki public or private?

Yes, you can make your wiki public or private. And no matter what you choose, a password is always required to edit your wiki--meaning only your trusted group can make changes to your wiki.

 

 

Can I attach pictures or video clips?

Yes. In fact, you can attach any type of file to any page in your wiki. Just click the "Files" button. Free wikis get 10MB of storage space, and Premium wikis get from 1000MB to 5000MB to store as many files as you can imagine.

 

Can I monitor what goes up on the wiki? What about deleting some of it?

Yes, you can get notified by email of every change that's made to your wiki.

 

Is my data safe? Can I back up my pages?

Your data is safe. We back up our data hourly, and you can get 1-click backups right from your wiki. Our job is to keep our users' data secure, so we're fanatical about safety and security.

 

How many PBwikis do you have?

We host over 130,000 PBwikis--a lot!

 

Who are the people behind PBwiki?

We're real people. There are 3 of us: David Weekly, Ramit Sethi, and Nathan Schmidt. We're all Stanford graduates and we're building the best wiki in the world. You can contact us any time at support@pbwiki.com.

 

 

Quotes from other educators

“Incredible. Awesome. Why didn’t I know about this sooner?”

 

These comments are from some of the people to whom I’ve previewed the presentation “What’s a Wiki?” that will feature the pbwiki site. Your group has put together an easy-to-use, easy-to-access site, and you have my compliments and my gratitude for making this available for educational use.

 

Susan Dupre, NBCT

Technology Facilitator, St. Mary Parish School Board