The home page for my courses contains links to the TikiWiki (Tiki, from now on) features I have chosen to use. I have a simple web page template (left) that I use for all of my courses, which James Morgan (KML-Carnegie) built when I used the group space for the first time. Over the years, I have experimented with various appearances available from the Tiki style choices, settling on the current one for functional and aesthetic reasons. Wiki pages are different from regular web pages in that they allow the viewer to edit their contents. Moreover, the code (language) needed to build such pages is much simpler than other web-authoring languages (eg, HTML, XTML, Java). In case you are wondering, yes the Wikipedia relies on this very technology to substantiate their claims about a democratic authoring system to compile and share information. The Tiki allows me, as the owner of each group, to assign privileges and set restrictions for every wiki page at various levels, including "anonymous" (anyone online), "registered" (with any of the groups I own), "specific groups" (courses), and "editor" or "manager," which provide self-explanatory privileges to individual members. (I do not use the last two.) The Tiki also allows me to choose among the various features available for all wiki pages, I use the group blog, file gallery, comments, export, and history. This last feature is what makes it possible for me and the managers of the wikipedia to restore pages to their prior state after important content is deleted by either innocent or malicious visitors/editors. The picture on the left is from my Spring '06 "English Language Development Methods-Secondary" course's collaborative group space homepage. I have added red highlights to help me explain the layout, which is as follows: 1 In order for my students to access any of the group space's pages, they must first sign in with a login and password. This guarantees privacy within each course and goes a long way in encouraging students to be candid in their responses to readings and other course-related comments. (NOTE: Although the multiple links on this page will allow you to visit several pages with Tiki features, you will not be able to access my students' comments, as they wrote these with the expectation that they would be read only by their classmates and me.) 2 The links that I use most regularly are for (a) "Weekly plans," a wiki page on which I list topics of discussion, activities, and assigned readings for each week, and (b) "eReserve readings," which is how they can access the Mills Library page with electronic copies of articles for my course. On the "Weekly plans" page, I include links to Wiki pages with prompts for each article. Students use the "comments" link at the bottom of this page to enter a comment on the article or on a classmate's comment. 3 This area contains the links to course-related files, such as handouts for hands-on activities and other materials that we use throughout the course. My students have privileges to download and upload files, although most only download copies of handouts we use in class. They have told me that they use these as templates for handouts they use in classes they teach. I also provide them with a page containing several links to web pages of interest for teachers interested in developing their students' proficiency in using language for academic purposes. 4 The group blog is a space where anyone in the course can post a comment or reflection for everyone to read. I do not require students to post blog entries (other than when I teach them to use the site, at the beginning of the semester). Rather, I invite them to use this space as a way to keep in touch with each other about issues related to their teaching in general or, ideally, specific to language development in teaching. Students rarely post blog entries. It is for this reason that, during my Spring '06 English Language Development Methods-Secondary course, I decided to use this as a place for me to enter regular reflections about things I noticed about my teaching and my students' learning. As I soon found out, several of my students read my reflections every week. I have decided to continue to do this in the future, in the spirit of making my teaching and thinking behind it as transparent and accessible to the beginning teachers I teach. 5 This area provides a convenient link to the KEEP ToolKit. Given that the bulk of their coursework requires my students to use this tool, I devote a portion of the first two class meetings during each semester to introduce my students to the KEEP ToolKit and familiarize them with using this collaborative group space. (Here is a link for a handout I use.) 6 This is a frame containing quick links to pages with most of the features I describe above. It is a constant feature of all Tiki-related pages. 7 The Wiki page linked to this question mark provides students with a page for them to post useful information they learn about the Tiki. I have yet to read a posting by a student, however. I will probably remove this link from future versions.