The word, "wiki" is Hawaiian for quick. "Wikiwiki" means real quick. Ward Cunningham, the creator of the first wiki, liked the name as he had become familiar with it through frequent rides on the WikiWiki shuttle buses at the Honolulu International Airport. His first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, is still up and running at its original location on the Portland Pattern Repository site. Cunningham’s objective was to create an easy authoring tool that would encourage people to publish online. “Easy” is the key here, as a wiki is a Web site where anyone can “easily” create or edit anything at any desired time, as long as there is a computer with a Web browser and an Internet connection available. No knowledge of HTML is necessary as most hosted wiki programs now have a WYSIWYG option.

There are two major Web sites where teachers can set up free (and ad-free) wikis for teacher/classroom use: 1) PBWIKI – easy to use, free, easy to insert videos, pictures, etc. The one disadvantage is that it only allows you to have 10 mbs. of storage space. 2) WIKISPACES is the second site that is free for teachers. They provide a lot of storage space, but, in my opinion (my own personal preference), do not give you as many other options as PBWIKI.