Creating wiki with pbworks

Creating Your First Wiki with PB Works 1. Go to the PB Wiki Site: http://www.pbworks.com 2. Click Sign Up

3. Select the Basic Plan which is the free plan and includes 2 GB of storage space.

4. Fill in your information. Choose an address for your PBworks wiki. Be sure to choose “For Education� as your workspace type.

5. Select Company type from the pull down menu.

6. Select Workspace Purpose from the pull down menu.

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Enter your name.

8. Enter a valid email address.

9. Enter a password you wish to use for your account.

10. Click Next.

A confirmation email will be sent to the email address you provided. Open the email and click on the activation link to return to PBworks and continue setting up your account.

Choose the Security Settings for your workspace.

11. Select who can view and edit your wiki. These settings can be modified at any time.

12. Place a check in the box to agree with PBworks Terms of Service.

13. Click Take me to my workspace.

Workspace Basics The workspace title functions as a "Home" button and can always be clicked to return you to the FrontPage.

Page History: allows you to revert to previous page revisions

Page Tabs: View: displays your wiki as a webpage Edit: allows you to modify the content on a page

Click the

to hide or reveal the right panel.

Wiki Settings To view the settings for your wiki, click on the link when you are in View mode. Not all of the settings can be modified on a wiki created with a free account.

Basic Settings: About this space – allows you to change the title text that appears at the top of each page, enter a brief description of the wiki’s contents, and change the contact email address of the wiki’s owner. You can also specify the language and time used for your wiki.

Colors – allows you to select a color scheme for your wiki which can be edited at any time.

Be sure to click Save Color Scheme once you make your selection. You can always reset the color scheme to the default setting.

Access Controls: Users Now it’s time to assign roles to determine the level of access to your wiki.

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Administrator – you are automatically assigned the role of Administrator as the wiki creator and owner. This role allows you to add and remove users, change permissions, and access the settings page.

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Editor – can rename and delete pages, files and folders.

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Writer – can edit pages and revert to previous versions, upload files and add pages.

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Reader – can only view content on the wiki – does not have rights to make any changes.

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Page-level only – allows you to assign someone Editor level permissions on a single page without offering access to the entire wiki.

Assigning User Roles You can create student accounts without having an email address. The built in tool will automatically generate usernames and passwords.

For users with email addresses, enter the address, choose the Permission level from the pull down menu.

Click the link to “Learn more about permission levels” to help you decide.

Click the Add user button.

An invitation email will be sent out to each user with a link to access the wiki.

For student generated accounts, provide them with the link to the wiki along with their username and password. You might want to print a list to keep as a reference once the accounts are generated.

Workspace Security - allows you to determine if a wiki will be private or public.

Checking the box next to “Let people request access” allows people visiting the wiki to request to be added as a user.

Pending user requests will be listed at the top of the Users page in the wiki’s Settings.

You also have the option to Disable commenting for readers.

Click Save if you make any changes to your Workspace Security.

Adding and Formatting Content If you have been assigned the role of Writer, Editor, or Administrator, you can edit the content on the wiki. Log in to the wiki and select the Edit tab. Your screen will resemble a word processing document with similar toolbars and options. Mouse over the icons to reveal functionality.

If you are editing the FrontPage, you will see some placeholder text. Press the Delete key to remove it and replace with your own text. Be sure to click the Save button to save your changes.

Adding and Managing Pages You can add multiple pages to your wiki. To add a page: 1. Click on

.

2. Enter a name for the new page in the text field at the top of the screen.

3. Templates are available under “More options� if desired.

4. Click the Create Page button.

5. Make sure to click the Save button to add the new page to your wiki site.

To view all the pages on your site, click on and select All Pages. This will display a list of all of the pages along with the time and date of the last revision.

To remove a page from your site, check the box next to the name of the page on the Pages & Files page and click on the Delete button.

To rename a page, click on the Rename link below the page name, enter a new name, and click anywhere outside the page name text field to save your changes.

The Sidebar is a special page on your wiki site that can be used to add navigation by placing links to all the other pages on your wiki site.

Click on the Edit the sidebar link to open it for editing, just as you would any other page.

Organizing Wiki Site Files As your wiki site begins to grow, it is helpful to organize your pages and files into folders. To create a new folder on your wiki site: 1. Click on

.

2. Click on New and select Create a folder.

3. Enter the folder name and click Enter.

To place a page in a folder, click on menu.

, choose a folder name from the pull down

To remove a page from a folder, click on . Click on the name of the folder on the left side of the screen to view all the pages in that folder. Check the box next to the name of the page you wish to remove from the folder and click Move. Select Remove from (folder name) in the pop up window and click on Move.

Another way to remove a page from a folder is to move it to a different folder. With the page displayed on the left, click on . Choose the desired destination folder using the pull down menu.

To rename or delete a folder, go to ,, select the folder on the left side of the screen, click either the Rename folder or Delete folder button.

Adding Images

Click on the Images and Files tab.

Click Upload Files.

Locate the file on your computer and click Open.

The file will be uploaded and appear on the Images and Files tab.

Place your cursor where you would like the image to appear and click on the filename of the image to insert into your wiki.

To resize the image, you can drag the corner handles. You can also reposition the image by dragging to a new location. Be sure to Save before you exit the Edit view.

Creating Quick Hyperlinks to Files and Pages

Click on the Images and Files tab.

Place your cursor where you would like the file to appear on your wiki page.

Click on the filename.

PBworks will automatically create the hyperlink for you.

Be sure to Save before you exit the Edit view.

Click on the Pages tab.

Place your cursor where you would like the page hyperlink to appear on your wiki.

Click on the page name.

PBworks will automatically create the hyperlink for you.

Be sure to Save before you exit the Edit view.

Creating hyperlinks to pages, files, folders, URLs, and Email Addresses Highlight the text on your wiki page that you would like to hyperlink to a page, file, folder, URL, or email address.

Click on the Insert/Edit Link icon on the toolbar

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This will open the Insert Link dialogue box.

Select the Link Type in the pull down menu.

For URL, you will have the option to open in a new window if you desire.

Click OK to add the link to the wiki page. If you need to edit the link, select the link text and click on the Insert/Edit Link icon . You can also hit the backspace key to remove the hyperlink.

Inserting Plug-Ins Plugins can be used to add videos, slideshows, calendars, and more. To add a plugin to your wiki, click on the icon on your toolbar to open the Insert Plugin pop up window.

Click on a category to see the available plugins.

Click on the link for the plugin you wish to add.

The remaining steps will vary depending on the type of plugin you selected.

Select the Preview button to view how your plugin will appear on your page before you insert it.

Some examples of popular plugins include: calendars, spreadsheets, PowerPoint slideshows, Google gadgets, videos, photo slideshows, Voki speaking avatars, equations, footnotes, table of contents, and recent visitors

Tags Each PBworks page can have tags associated with it. Tags are similar to keywords and can help you locate a page.

To add a tag to a page: Click on the icon when you are in View mode. You can add multiple tags at once by separating them with a comma. To search your PBworks wiki with tags, type the word tag followed by a colon and the name of the tag. If you wanted to search a PBworks site for all pages tagged with homework, you would type “tag:homework�.

Revisions PBworks keep track of every change you make to the wiki to make it easy to go back to a previous version if you make a mistake. To access the Revisions Page, Click on while in View mode. Click on the hyperlinked date to preview the version of the selected page.

The page will be displayed with the option to View the current version, Revert to this version, or return to the Revisions Page by selecting Page History.

Notice on the Revision Page you can compare two revisions by making a selection with the radio buttons on the left and clicking the Compare button. The two revisions will be shown in different text colors, so you can tell them apart.

You also have the option to delete individual revisions by clicking on the red Delete button to the right of each revision.

Help The best way to get help is to click the Help link in the top right corner while you are in View mode.

Here you will find The PBworks Manual and 30-second training videos.