Great first steps to get students involved

     1.   Students Pages

"I used it to build community by posting everyone's picture on a "Who We Are" page and asking students to contribute brief bios to that page. That worked really well. It helped me learn who my students were and it also helped my students get to know one another. We also used it as a springboard to discussions about online privacy and the nature of the public and private in today's world."Gloria Jacobs

     2.   Class notes

"Students were assigned to summarize the information discussed in class on a specific day.  Other students then commented on, or added links to, the work of their peers. I found that in many cases, even students who are uncomfortable speaking in class are willing to participate in an online environment." Angela Cunningham

     3.  Study Guides:

"My students also did a nice job in creating study guides for each chapter.  It worked better when I developed a series of questions that needed to be addressed rather." Melissa Pearson

     4.  Question Page

Allow students to post and respond to each other. 

     5. Homework question

Students can respond to a homework question by placing comments. The question needs to be higher order to make it difficult for plagiarism. Inform them that they know they can not duplicate another person's answer. They can agree with someone else but they must add their own comment as well. Telannia Norfar

     6. Post information on the wiki.  Next, require students to do one of the following as a "Comment": a) reword a concept into their own words, b) post a question about the posted content, or c) respond to someone else's posting or question.  It is a great way to show the types of postings that are expected as well as get students using the wiki.  Kristyn K.