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=Welcome to the OMS New Literacies Wiki! =

=What are the New Literacies, and what is a Wiki?=

To put it briefly, they are the online literacy skills our students -and we as teachers - need for the 21st century. This involves being able to find, evaluate, and synthesize online information - as well as convey our own ideas across the digital landscape. In other words, it is being able to listen and be heard in an online world.

There are **many tools available** to help us become more adept at using this online landscape in our classrooms and, in the process, make our teaching easier. These range from sites that help us create documents and presentations, to ones which connect us with teachers and students across the globe. Taken together, the vast number of tools and web pages available for our use can be overwhelming. Where to start? What works best? The goal of this Wiki is to give us a starting point for exploring and sharing some of the tools that can work well in our classrooms. If you're in Oak Middle School, and would like some help setting up or using some of the tools you see here, please feel free to contact media type="custom" key="6682201" or media type="custom" key="6682213" - we will arrange a time to come by your room, or to have you swing by. We're here to help!


 * What is a Wiki?** Think of a wiki as a website that anyone can help edit. You've all heard of Wikipedia. That is a public wiki that lets anyone contribute to adding information. The hope is that this page will become a go-to site for teacherts at Oak - and in Shrewsbury as a whole - for supporting one another in our ongoing effort to become more adept at the new technologies and literacies. On the left side of this page, you will see the menu of pages available on this site. Simply click on the link and explore. Once you join the site, you will be able to edit the pages and contribute new ones so that we can all learn from one another.

First Steps:

 * 1) Go to wikispaces.com and sign up for a free account.
 * 2) Come back to this OMS Science Wiki and click on the "Join" link at the top of the page. (As the owner of this wiki, I must approve everyone so we don't get random people editing our information.)
 * 3) Once I approve you, you will be able to edit everything on this wiki from text and pictures to pages and widgets. It is similar to editing a document in Microsoft Word...very easy stuff!
 * 4) If you have any questions, click on the "Discussion" link at the top left and I will help you out.

Wikispaces Video Tutorials
Click here to view some tutorials on how to use Wikispaces. They explain everything from the basics such as adding links and files to adding widgets.

Wikispaces for Educators
If you are interested in creating your own wikis to use in your classroom, go to the Wikispaces Educator site. It allows you to set up a free educator wiki (like this one). You can set it to private and can create student accounts that don't need email addresses to register.


 * Click on the edit button above to put your own content on this page.
 * To invite new members, click on **Manage Wiki** and **Invite People**.
 * To change your wiki's colors or theme, click on **Manage Wiki** and **Look and Feel**.
 * To set who can view and edit your wiki, click on **Manage Wiki** and **Permissions**.

Need Help?

 * Click on the help link above to learn more about how to use your wiki.