Wikispaces vs. PBworks (previously PBwiki)

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Permalink Reply by Heather Davis on July 16, 2009 at 11:43pm

Hi, I am not going to offer any advice but I will mention that in China PBworks and the previous PBwiki are blocked but Wikispaces
not. I have no idea why but it has been like that for a long time.

Of course, at the moment in China, this site is blocked and I have to use a proxy to read it.

I love international teaching but there are challenges.

Heather

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Permalink Reply by Meg H on July 17, 2009 at 8:20am

I'm going to be posting a little article this weekend comparing 4 wiki platforms for teachers (wikispaces, PBworks - formerly PBwiki, wetpaint, and luminotes), highlighting user levels, etc. And in my opinion PBworks is by far the most robust, but it's also the one that requires the most up front time to develop properly: of course, difficulty of development is all connected to what you want to do with it, and quite frankly the age, level, experience of your users (the students).

meg
http://megansnotebook.blogspot.com/

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Permalink Reply by Kristine on July 17, 2009 at 3:47pm

Hey Chris,

If you have any specific questions about PBwiki (PBworks), feel free to shoot me an email. I work there and just finished up our edu summer camp, so I can point you to some specific resources. Or you can check out our edu discussion forum here: http://educatorforum.pbworks.com/forum/

-Kristine
http://twitter.com/pbkrissy
Kristine@pbworks.com

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Permalink Reply by Chris Fritz on July 17, 2009 at 5:00pm

I look forward to reading your post Meg and thank you Kristine for your offer - I'll let you know if I have more questions as I'm exploring. I can see why Karen said your customer service was phenomenal! :-)

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Permalink Reply by Sheri on August 20, 2009 at 5:47pm

Besides all the other comments about PBWorks and Wikispaces, I'd like to add one more great feature of PBWorks: templates. If you have a page style that you want students to use (such as book review form, project tracking, questions, etc.), all that you need to do is to add "template" to the tag of the page you want as a template. When students create a new page, that template (as the name you gave the page) shows up in the options so students do not need to retype everything. It's fantastic. I use PBWorks extensively, but it really depends on your purpose. Sheri

List of my templates when I cleck "Template" under "Options" when creating a page:

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Nielsen on August 21, 2009 at 6:08am

As an fyi Wikispaces also has templates. They're great and I use them often when working with teachers as we upload lessons using one of a number of lesson plan template formats.

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Permalink Reply by Patrick H on August 16, 2010 at 8:20pm

PB Works also has templates. They certainly to save time.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Wilcox on August 20, 2009 at 6:53pm

Hi Chris,

Last year I started playing around with wikis and I just found PBWorks easier to use. Although getting students added can be time consuming. It may be the same for Wikispaces I never got that far. The wikis the students created were great and relatively easy to do. One other thing I found was PBWorks would not allow more than one person at a time to edit a wiki. So if we were working in class in groups only one member could be logged on. Again it may be the same for Wikispaces. PBWorks has a real easy history check to see who has been doing what and good comment section. I really like it.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Linduska on August 21, 2009 at 6:37am

I believe PBWorks allows you to create individual student logins which does not require a student to have an email address. Rather it refers to the instructor address for the class members.
This is a value-add for many reasons beyond have/have-nots.

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Permalink Reply by TeachingSagittarian on August 21, 2009 at 6:45pm

If you have an educator account (free) at wikispaces - you too can create individual student logins that do not require a student to have an email address, using the bulk user creator in the Managing Wikispace area. You can also email the team at wikispaces and they will do it for you.

Just recently PBwiki announced that they will no longer be offering any new "ad-free" accounts for educators. All existing educator wikis will remain ad-free though. Wikispaces still offers "ad-free" accounts for educators.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on September 30, 2009 at 4:12pm

I believe you are thinking of Wetpaint. As far as I know, wikis on PBworks are still ad-free for new subscribers.

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Permalink Reply by Karen Fasimpaur on August 21, 2009 at 5:07pm

I've worked extensively with both. If you are using the free versions, Wikispaces offers a few big advantages, including offering a backup (hugely important) and offering an ad-free version for educators. Teachers also seem to learn it a little quicker than PBWorks in my experience.

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