Sartz’s Blog

There have been many changes to the wide world of wiki since my earlier post on the relative merits of Wikispaces, Wetpaint and PBWiki. But PBWiki (Which stands for Peanut Butter Wiki) have just perhaps been the most prolific in their changes. I now find myself being lured back to PBWiki and might just have to change my earlier judgment on which wiki is best.

Since writing my earlier post on PBWiki they have made one major change which has prompted me to go back for a second look. PBWiki now allows you to add a whole class full of users to a wiki without the need for email addresses. This means that I can set up my class of users very quickly and walk into class armed with my list of usernames and passwords all ready for the students to get stuck into some good old collaboration, or poetry, or personal writing, or……..

This rather useful change to the wiki has prompted me to take another look at the options in PBWiki and the further I delve into the innards of the wiki the more great features I am finding. Little things like being able to create folders in which you can place pages which make navigating PBWiki a real breeze. Instead of having 50 pages listed down the side of the wiki, I can make a folder for Poetry and a folder for Science and I can give students a page in each of these folders, this is  a useful little feature for keeping everything seperate and nicely organised. Even better you can set who can edit/read each page if you want so you can have pages which students can change nestled amongst pages which only you can change.

PBWiki also allows the user to add Plugins to their page. These plugins are largely standard fare with YouTube, SlideShare, etc all making an appearance. But the one I love is the Google Gadgets. These useful little things are the same gadgets which you can add to your iGoogle page. ( Whats that you don’t have an iGoogle page… Click here to get one.) These gadgets allow you to add news feeds, horoscopes, weather, and so on and so on. You can even make it display your favourite “World of Warcraft” charactor if you are that way inclined.

So what does all this mean? Sorry WetPaint but PBWiki is the new king of the wiki’s. It’s easy to use, has lots of functionality and is set up in a way that a classroom can access it and get stuck into the good stuff quickly and easily…