My recent article on the best wiki for classroom education prompted me to take a fresh look at Wikispaces because of its offer of free no ads wikis for educators.
Wikispaces has its roots in wiki markup language but now has an effective WYSIWYG option, which means you can put together very presentable wiki pages without having to worry about or even see the code that lies behind them. The paid plans allow you to access html and css. Using these codes gives you much more control over the look and feel of your wiki.
If you want to try a paid plan, you get a 30-day free trial. Wikispaces are hoping you will love it so much, you could never go back!
Here is my full detailed review of wikispaces
Wikispaces provider statement
” Wikispaces lets you create simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together. Feel free to look around, make a new space, get help, or contact us if you have any questions.”
Wikispaces hosting options
In the Plus Plan and above you have more control over the look and layout of your pages. There are no ads down the side of your wiki pages in the paid plans and the free offer for educators.There is great storage for attachments. Even in the free option you have 2 whole GBs of storage, everyone can find a use for these.
Free One wiki space - 2GB storage - free - ads on pages
Plus One wiki space - 2GB storage - $5 a month - no ads
Private label Unlimited wiki spaces - 40GB storage - $100 a month
Domain names
You choose a sub-domain name: www.YourUserName.Wikispaces.com In the Private Label Plan you can use a custom domain you have registered and it would look something like nameofspace.wiki.yourchoice.com
Access to Wikispaces wikis
A Wikispaces wiki is called, unsurprisingly a space.
- A public space can be viewed and edited by anyone.
- A protected space can be viewed by anyone but only be edited by members of the space.
- A private space can only be viewed or edited by members of the space.
A free wiki can be public or protected but not private.
Editing Wikispaces wikis
Wikispaces has an easy to use WYSIWYG editor in the free plan and you can use wiki markup if you like. A paid plan gives you a lot more control of your pages by allowing you to edit html and css.
Content supported
The WYSIWYG editor give you an easy way to layout text and images, seeing the changes as you make them. The WYSIWYG editor also allows you to use widgets or paste snippets of html into the page. This allows you to easily embed just about any content you like. You can easily embed, for example, youtube videos, calenders, spreadsheets or audio.
Wikispaces Security
Wikispaces has pretty good security options. Wikispaces requires people to log on before they can edit. This means you know who has done what on your site. Protected and private sites can only be edited by people you invite.
Wikispaces language options
Wikispaces say you can build your wiki in nearly every language on earth and help is available in many languages.
Wikispaces is very visitor friendly
Wikispaces are easy for visitors to enjoy. They are also easy to use. Wikispaces hosts many classroom projects.
Wiki Management
Wikispaces appears to be very well managed. The site has a good solid feel and it has all the site management requirements you are likely to need.
Help and Support
The forum on wikispaces often has a lot of ‘hey look at me’ sort of stuff in today’s posts but these are cleaned out regularly and moved to an open chat forum. Looking back a day or two allows you to see the real issues people are discussing.
Help is very good and Wikispaces seems to respond well to any problems or requests.
Wikispaces turns on a good solid performance even in the free option. 2 GB is a lot of storage and this is available for files you want to attach to your wiki.
If you want to give it a go you visit wikispaces.
On page two of this article, I have laid out the features of Wikispaces wiki on a detailed table.
Tagged with: Review • Wiki • Wikispaces
One Comment
Thank you for the advice, i really apreciate it.