I am one that is usually up for new challenges and decided to take on “Back to School Challenge” by PBwiki. The feature that intrigued me the most about creating a PBwiki is the feature that students can be invited to use the pbwiki without having an email address.

When you use a wiki, your students get a gentle introduction into online collaboration, and they’ll remain engaged beyond the classroom. Many of our educators tell us about their students getting hooked on PBwiki and editing it from home and on the weekends!

Several months ago I set up a PBwiki for personal use and didn’t like the structure and setup of the pbwiki. The wikispaces and various nings were much easier and met the need at the time. After reading about the challenge from an email, I decided to revisit PBwikis and discovered the ease of the setup and the ability to create pages from pre-created templates. These features made PBwikis definitely worth it to take a second look and set up the PBwiki.

In just a few minutes I had things set up and invited a few users to the wiki. The wiki will be used for educational purposes but I currently have the pbwiki set to private views until I have things set up and ready for public viewing. Regardless of whether you participate in the Back to School Challenge or not, I was extremely impressed with the new PBwikis and the awesome resources available on the site. Even if you don’t use PBwikis, some of the white papers and educational resources are applicable to any type of wiki setup and worth checking out. And if you take on the back to school challenge good luck to you!