Thing #17 Hands-on Exercise: Playing in a Wiki Sandbox

"Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play. For this discovery and exploration exercise, there's a whole Learning 2.0 Favorites wiki* that’s for nothing but play!

For this “explore-and-play-with-wikis” exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two to the PBwiki Learning 2.0 wiki. The theme of this wiki is simply “Favorites” : Favorite books, favorite vacation spots, favorite restaurants, favorite anything …all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page.

Discovery Resources

• PB Wiki Tour - Find out how this collaborative tool can be used
• PBWiki Features - Learn more about specific features
• PB Wiki Tips

Discovery Exercise

1. Access the PLCMC Learning 2.0 wiki and create a login account for yourself. The password is on the bottom of the login page: plcmc.
2. Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page (look for the San Antonio Public Library logo toward the end of the page). That's how we'll know that you've been there. It’s easy to do if you follow this simple syntax (11/24 UPDATE: the all-text instructions below will only work if you switch to the "classic" editing mode. The default is the WYSIWYG mode. Try both. See which one you like. You won't break anything!):
   

   Example:

   [ URL Title of blog]

   [ http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/ Learning 2.0 ]

   With brackets [ ] and just a little typing, you’ve added a link - yup, it’s as easy as that! (If you don't want to do it old-school style, there's a handy WYSIWYG editor, too.)

   OPTIONAL: Add a favorite or two to a few other pages (Favorite books, favorite vacation spot, etc). And, if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a separate page for book reviews or short travel essays and link up to that.

3. Create a post in your blog about the experience.

* NOTE: The PLCMCLearning Wiki was created using the free version of PBWiki, a tool that lets you create webpages that anyone can edit.