Wiki What???

My Creative Writing class wanted to write a class story. Here is what ensued...

Last week, I asked about using an etherpad with my Creative Writing students. After our classes on Friday evening and Saturday, I learned that there are some security issues related to etherpad that we may not want to get into with our students, and I was encouraged to try a wiki instead. I thought, "Okay, I can do that." While we were discussing the issues with etherpad, I remembered that our teacher webpages had a feature that would enable us to add a wiki page to our class website. Since this is where my kids blog, I thought this would be feasible and safe for the students. So Friday evening, excited that I had found an alternative to etherpad, I added a wiki page to my Creative Writing website.

Monday, my kids came to Creative Writing excited for workshop. We finished most of the pieces during that particular class period because they were even more excited about having the opportunity to begin writing a class story on Wednesday. Wednesday rolled around, and we finished workshop with plenty of time to spare for using the wiki to begin the class story. Each student logged in to a laptop. They were going to work on workshop revisions and the class story at the same time. (I love my little multi-taskers...)But low and behold, they did not have access to the wiki page. I was the only person who could make changes to the wiki. Will someone please tell me, what good is a wiki page only one person can access? I mean, because I teach six different classes, I am known to be more than one person on any given day, but I'm just saying...

"Monitor and adjust, monitor and adjust," is what I thought next. I knew I quickly had to correct this situation or face the disappointment of thirteen individuals who had been looking forward to this activity all week. Thank goodness they were multitaskers; everyone had something else to work on while I figured out what to do next.

How did I fix it, you ask? I accessed the wiki page as myself, opened the page on my classroom desktop, turned on the projector, and the kids would leave their revisions to add to the class story when someone else added something which inspired them. This IS NOT what I had in mind, but it was the best I could do with what I had available. At the end of the day, I felt like passing around a piece of notebook paper would have been as effective. I was not a happy camper.

I'm still disappointed, but that's why teachers are known for their ability to monitor and adjust and be cool under pressure (hah!), right? I would love suggestions if anyone has any. Does anyone know or understand why we would have a wiki page for our websites if we can't access it? Are there any other free wiki options we could have used?