Meeting place and wiki service that proved difficult to use

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Teacher Review For PBworks

Eric E.
Classroom teacher

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My Rating 2

Learning Scores

Engagement 3

Support 3

Classroom feedback

My Students Liked It No

My Students Learned No

I Would Recommend It No

Setup Time More than 15 minutes

Great for Further application
Homework
Knowledge gain
Small group
Teacher-led lessons
Whole class

Great with ELL
General

How I Use It

I used this as a student in a college class. My experience there made me decide against using it in my high school classes. I liked the ability to create pages and portfolios for work. I thought it would be great to have students build and present their portfolios online. Students could visit each others' spaces, could comment and leave feedback. The reality was very different. Linking pages was problematic. Organizing information that was uploaded was difficult. It was also very time consuming. In a high school class where time is precious, I can not justify taking the time to teach this to my students. There are easier, more streamlined services out there that I will use in the future.

My Take

I test-drove PBworks in a college class to see if I would like to apply it to my high school classes. My review could be a result of the professor setting up the class, but after reading additional reviews I feel that the flaws are the fault of the platform itself. The idea was to have a collaborative wiki space where class members could meet, exchange assignment, collaborate, and store files online. It started okay. But as the class progressed it became cumbersome to navigate. We also ran into problems with permissions and some students were allowed to save to the website while others were restricted. The plan was good. Implementation was poor.

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Meeting place and wiki service that proved difficult to use

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How I Use It

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