The more I work with wiki’s the more I like them. We use a wiki for our district technology committee and after our monthly meetings I post our notes for everyone to read. I send the link out to all school staff so they can access the information, too. Anyone on the committee who has been approved can add and change the content. They can make edits which helps with correcting the minutes, they can post additional reports to share, and add links to interesting articles other committee members may want to read. It is nice to be able to lock the wiki and only have those who have permission to make edits as this lessens the chances that someone might dismantle the information. I have found that Wikipedia has information worth looking at for some topics such as very new technologies. I rarely purchase print books that have to do with technology since everything changes so fast! I like the fact that Wikipedia is monitored closely. We know that well because many of our school district IP addresses have been blocked because there were too many falsehoods posted onto Wikipedia from them!
The wiki for Albany County Public Library Staff is a great example of how a wiki can benefit a group of people in a library setting. The wiki has links to training sites, lists of how to perform library tasks such as creating statistic reports, and meeting notes that everyone can read. I think that a wiki might be a very useful tool for our district library staff. We use email quiet a bit and would continue with messages, but having information which could be referenced any time may be very helpful for communication and training items. Off the top of my head, I can think of a wiki for our district libraries that had direct links to the AkASL homepage, Alaska Handbook for School Librarians, and even the Battle of the Books homepage where our wiki page could include information specific for our district battle program would be useful information.
What is the difference between PBwiki and Wikispaces? Well, who knew? I did not know there were so many different kinds of wikis! PBwiki (PeanutButterWiki) was created in 2005. I have a “wikispaces” account and that is the software I am most familiar with! It looks like most of the wiki softwares offer free wikis for small groups with basic features and a specific size. If a company or library or group wanted to use more features and have more space, then there are graduated fee scales.
I wonder when Microsoft Word will no longer underline “wiki” in red?!
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we will know that wikis have arrived when they are added to the MS dictionary....that is so true. I use a wiki for the ASD Librarians - it started because I wanted to get the handbook out of the notebook and onto a digital format so we could stop killing trees.....
ReplyDeleteIt works great. Most of the wikis that have educational accounts are very similar so being familiar with wikispaces is what makes the difference for me.
Ann