dragonsinger – learning, unlearning & relearning

WikiEducator vs WikiSpaces

I’ve been doing a bit of editing in both wikis over the last few days and while they are both wikis there are many differences.

WikiSpaces has a number of shortcuts for changing different sections – cosmetic changes if you like. The coding is also different which made my initial foray into WikiEducator a puzzle as the formatting I was used to using didn’t work.

My Classroom Wiki Portal

My WikiEducator homepage

WikiEducator has a different purpose overall I think. As already mentioned there are differences in the coding but it has a very neat function where you can edit parts of pages rather than having to edit the whole page at once.

indicates sections of editable code.”] The [Edit] indicates sections of editable code.

WikiSpaces allows you to embed objects (such as forms and pages) but I’ve yet to find that feature in WikiEducator. (And since they’re embedded they change as you continue to edit them.)

Embedded Google docs

I’m beginning to use WikiSpaces as part of my classroom curriculum delivery mechanism because it allows me to do the embedding (as mentioned above).

Part of Weekly Plan

WikiEducator allows me to do other types of formatting too such as the box shown here.

Other formatting available

I’m at the start of a 10-day wikieducator workshop – by the end I may well change how I use the two wikis. Time will tell.

Posted by dragonsinger at August 22nd, 2009 & Filed under Web2.0, wiki | 3 Comments »

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3 Comments to “WikiEducator vs WikiSpaces”

Paul Seiler said:
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm

Jo, interesting to read your initial comparison. As WikiEducator uses the same engine as Wikipedia there are both advantages (e.g. WE benefits from the large investment made by the MediaWiki Foundation) and downsides (e.g. some training required to get going). The Ministry of Education is investing in some tool improvements (e.g. a rich text editor for those who prefer this method for creating/editing). You can read more about this here: http://www.wikieducator.org/Funding_proposals/Reusable_and_portable_content_for_New_Zealand_schools

I look forward to reading more as you progress through the L4C training.

Paul.
Wayne Mackintosh said:
August 31st, 2009 at 1:44 pm

Hi Jo

That’s a good comparison. You’re right — Wikispaces is easier to learn, especially for newbies. As Paul mentioned, we will be implementing a Wysiwyg editor in the near future which will make this a lot easier for teachers.

There are a couple of important reasons why Wikieducator chose to use the Mediawiki software engine: 1) Its open source which means we’re free to develop new features designed specifically for educators and you can trust our commitment to free content as active members of the free culture movements! 2) The technology has proven scalability — it runs a top 10 website website (Wikipedia) and we collaborate with the Wikimedia Foundation on software improvements and features 3) Mediawiki provides considerable power to the user to innovate using the template engine.

Welcome aboard and we’re proud to have you join our WIkiEducator family
Miles Lankford said:
May 1st, 2010 at 2:54 pm

A teacher that is willing to learn about new things and try out new technology in the classroom. Awesome. I have not used WikiEducator at all, and Wikispaces very little. But what I have used of Wikispaces does not seem to hard.