Creating a Technical Writing

Online Portfolio with

Wikispaces.com

November 11, 2010

Hollie Cookson

Tyler Kiefer

Allison Knowles

Andrew Neutzling

Table of Contents

I. Getting Started

A.  Create a Wikispaces.com Account------Page 1

B.  Create a Wiki Online Portfolio Site------Pages 2-4

II. Navigating your Wiki Portfolio Homepage------Pages 5-7

III. Restrict Visitors from Editing Your Portfolio Content------Page 8

IV. Create & Edit Pages

A.  Create a Page------Page 9

B.  Edit a Page------Pages 10-11

V. Add Multimedia

A.  Getting Started ------Page 12

B.  Uploading Files------Page 12-13

C.  Add Files and Images to Pages------Pages 13-14

D.  Add an External Link------Page 14

E.  Add an Image from Another Website------Page 15-16

F.  Add Video from Another Website------Page 17-18

G.  Removing Unwanted Files, Links, Images, and Videos------Page 18-19

VI. Choosing a New Design Template------Page 20

VII. Helpful Hints: Paid Upgrades

A.  Permissions------Page 21

B.  Personalize your Wiki------Page 22-23

C.  Customize Domain Name------Page 23

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I. Getting Started

A. Create a Wikispaces Account

1.  Go to http://www.wikispaces.com.

2.  Click in the upper right corner of the page.

3.  At the right of the page, click Join Wikispaces Now!

4.  Choose a username and password and provide your email address. Your username is not the title of your Wiki online portfolio.

5.  Ready to create your Wiki portfolio?

a.  Yes! Select “yes”. Click and skip to Step 3 on page 4 section II: Creating a Wiki Online Portfolio Site.

b.  Not yet. Select “no”. Click . Welcome to Wikispaces!

B. Create a Wiki Online Portfolio Site

1.  Sign in to your Wikispaces account.

2.  Click .

3.  For Wiki Name, enter the name you would like for your Wiki portfolio.

4.  For Wiki Permissions select the “Protected (free)” radio button.*

*Note: Under Wiki Permission, you can either make your Wikispaces Public (anyone that is on the internet can view and edit your page), or Private (anyone can view your page but only the Wiki members that are registered on your site can edit the pages). We highly recommend using the Private setting.

5.  In the Wiki Type dropdown menu select “Personal”.

6.  After all information is entered click either or depending on what is visible to you.

a.  If you clicked you may need to re-sign in after you have created an account, but it may go straight to your account, which will look something like this: -Click your Wiki title. Your new page

will look much like the example in 6-b.

b.  If you clicked your page will look something like this.

Feel free to explore the Wikispaces “Getting Started with your Wiki” guide on your own or rely on this set of web portfolio-specific instructions.

7.  Close the Getting Started With Your Wiki Dialog. By default Wiki pages allow any visitor to your page to edit its content. You may wish to remove that privilege right away. See Section IV to remove that privilege.

II. Navigating your Wiki Portfolio Homepage

1.  Sign in to your Wikispaces account. (For help creating an account see Section I.)

2.  On your account homepage navigate to Favorite Wikis and click on the name of your online portfolio. (For help creating a site for your portfolio see Section II.)

3.  Your portfolio’s homepage will look something like this:

4.  Get oriented with your homepage! See corresponding red-numbered list for details on red boxes highlighting key areas of the homepage.

1.  SIDE BAR 1, Page Navigation: navigates among pages which you created

2.  SIDE BAR 2

  1. New Page: Create a new page
  2. Recent Changes: view recent updates
  3. Manage Wiki: More advanced account managing tools.

3.  YOUR-WIKI-NAME: click to returns to homepage at any time.

4.  TOP BAR:

  1. PAGE: drop down menu that navigates among pages you created
  2. DISCUSSION: view discussions posted by various users
  3. HISTORY: records updates to your Wikispace Site. May be used to return portfolio to a pre-edited state.
  4. NOTIFY ME: creates settings to notify you when other users make page updates or discussion board updates (probably not useful for an individual portfolio)

5.  WIKISPACES ACCOUNT NAVIGATION BAR

  1. YOUR USERNAME: returns you to your account sign in page
  2. MY WIKIS: search for other Wikispaces pages
  3. MAIL BUTTON: send messages to other Wikispaces users
  4. HELP: Useful information from Wikispaces
  5. SIGN OUT: sign out
  6. WIKISPACES: return to Wikispaces account homepage

6.  PAGE EDIT: allows you to easily edit content of whatever page you are currently visiting

III. Restrict Visitors from Editing Your Portfolio Content

By default Wikispaces.com allows any visitor to your page to edit its content. That is an undesirable privilege for a web portfolio that you will want to restrict right away. Use this section of the instructions if you forgot to restrict that privilege when you created your Wiki page or would like to review your permission settings.

1.  Navigate to your Wiki portfolio’s homepage.

2.  Click located on the left hand side of the page. A variety of functions and setting options will appear.

3.  Click the button which can be found under the People category.

4.  Select the “Protected” radio button and click .

Note: Feel free to read up on the other permissions options. Information on paid permission upgrades is provided in section VIII-A of the Instructions.

IV. Create and Edit Wiki Pages

A. Create a Page

Create pages to organize the information in your Wiki site. A link to each page you create will be listed in the left navigation bar.

1. Click on the New Page link on the column on the left side of your home screen. It will be the first link at the top of the column.

2. There will be two boxes in the middle of the screen for the user to type in. One is labeled Page Name and the other Add Tags. Click in the writeable area to type in the chosen page name, and once this is completed the same can be done for any tags the user wants to add.

Note: After typing in a tag, users may use a comma to list additional tags or press the enter key to add another tag.

3. After the user is done naming the page and adding any tags they want, the button must be clicked to create the page.

4. A tool bar will now pop up which will allow you to edit your new page. If you want to create the page and not add to or edit the page at this time, click the save button on the tool bar. Otherwise, proceeded to Step III-B-2.

B. Edit a Wiki Page: Text

Once you have created a new Wikis page, the next step is to edit the page. This includes adding a text style header or title to your page, bulleted or numbered lists, and multimedia.

1. Navigate to the page you wish to edit. Click the tab in the upper right corner of the page. A tool bar will appear at the top of your page.

2. Adding text to the page works similarly to writing an email. Just click in the editable box and begin typing. Use the toolbar at the top of the page to format your text. You may add a bulleted or numbered list if you see fit.

3. To organize text by adding a horizontal line across the page use this button: .

Your page can also be edited by adding multimedia. For example files, pictures, links, and tables can be added and edited on your page, but this will be covered in the adding multimedia section. See the instructions Part V.

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