Using wikis

In the spirit of sharing ideas, I've decided to say a bit about my experience of using a wiki. Wikis are websites on which the pages can be edited by all the users. They are therefore useful for collaborative writing and serve as a showcase for students to publish their writing on the web. As well as writing, they can upload photographs and audio files. I set up a PB wiki (http://pbwiki.com), which was very easy to use, but if you needed a bit more help there's a great site (http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/) which shows you how (or there's Andy). I used it with an SA2 class to write short biographies about famous Portuguese, to which they added pictures and short recordings. There's a comment button on each page, so you can draw attention to things that need changing, and you can encourage them to read one another's pages,peer correct and make comments. We haven't finished yet, and it was all a bit experimental, but if anyone is interested it's at http://famousportuguese.pbwiki.com. If that doesn't work, get in touch and I'll send you the link. If it does, but you can't see links to the pages in the column on the right, click on 'side bar'.

How to use AUDACITY

Audacity is very easy to use - it's like Microsft WORD but deals with sounds instead of words.

Click the red button to record, the blue button to pause and the yellow to stop. The blue recording line should move up and down (not stay horizontal), then you know you are recording. Rewind to the start with the first button, then hit the green to play. It's pretty easy to then edit it if you want, but otherwise click on FILE | Export as MP3 and save in an appropriate place (the T drive?). This MP3 is the one you can upload to Podmatic

How to create a blog - click on the slides