A free resource for social writing and online learning offers new tools for students and teachers who want to use safe social networking, group learning projects, and real-time formative assessments.
Wikispaces Classroom is the first streamlined platform from Wikispaces that is optimized for mobile devices to help meet the needs of students and teachers.
“We have always focused on helping teachers and students succeed by actively listening and giving them the tools they want,” said Adam Frey, co-founder of Wikispaces, in a statement. “We have taken everything we’ve learned from our users and created Wikispaces Classroom.”
(Next page: How is Wikispaces Classroom used?)
For classroom management: Through a centralized platform that manages all the activity, resources, conversations, and projects in a classroom for keeping students and teachers organized.
For project-based learning: Wikispaces Classroom allows teachers to create projects, define teams, assign students and manage all through completion of their projects. Starting from built-in templates, or a blank slate, students can work in private groups until their work is due. Teachers can choose to set assignment start and end dates, or create long-running projects. At the end of a project a teacher or student can share the results with the rest of the class or parents and other participants.
For formative assessment: Real-time reporting lets teachers track student progress, revealing which students are succeeding, which are falling behind, and how much they are contributing to their projects. Teachers can literally watch as students type; look up reports on contributions to pages, discussions, and comments over time; and focus on particular students, projects, or view reports across the entire class.
(Next page: Social networking, writing, and Wikispaces District and Campus)
For social networking: Teachers can decide who can participate and when. Because the user’s newsfeed is built around the work the classroom is doing, all of the discussion and activity is tied directly to the goals and work of the class. Teachers can monitor the complete history of student discussions, writing, and file uploads.
For knowledge communities: Wikispaces Classroom includes professional development resources, curriculum development groups, and student-built study guides to help turn informal knowledge into formal resources. The platform also encourages the use of internet resources, content, and tools.
For writing: Users can collaboratively edit pages using a visual editor; embed content from around the web, including videos, images, polls, documents, and more; and comment on sections of text or the entire page.
Wikispaces Classroom already has more than 10 million registered teachers and students on the platform–a number the creators say is due to the design based on teachers and student feedback from using Wikispaces.
“We’ve built Wikispaces Classroom for one reason–because teachers told us it will help increase their effectiveness in the classroom,” said James Byers, co-founder of Wikispaces. “We don’t want technology to be a hindrance and we don’t want to tell teachers how to teach. Instead, we asked educators what they needed to be successful. And then we delivered.”
In a recent survey conducted by Wikispaces, 72 percent of educators who responded stated that Wikispaces makes them more or much more effective as a teacher. Frey and Byers anticipate that Wikispaces Classroom, which will continue to be completely free for teachers, will do even more to help increase student engagement and student achievement.
“I have been a Wikispaces user for years, and I am very excited about Wikispaces Classroom. It’s going to be a great way to enhance my students’ learning. I’m especially looking forward to using it on my mobile phone, and the News Feed and Formative Assessment features look awesome,” said Brett Young, a teacher in Canada who had an opportunity to test the new platform.
“What guides our work is teacher empowerment and student outcomes,” Frey said. “That is what has allowed us to become a fast growing, sustainable business. So much of the activity in ed-tech right now is doomed to fail because of a lack of understanding of and focus on teachers and students. We are committed not just to delivering great products for the ed-tech market but to speaking up, sharing our experiences, and influencing entrepreneurs and ed-tech companies.”
To view Wikispaces Classroom, visit: http://www.wikispaces.com/.
Wikispaces Campus, a solution for school districts and universities, will be available soon. Contact Wikispaces Classroom for more information by scrolling to the bottom of this page: http://www.wikispaces.com/content/classroom/about.
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