Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Thing #16: Wiki, Wiki!

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I am not sure what is supposed to be "wiki wiki" (fast) but I am not it! I have read several of the suggested wikis ,and all the information just vanishes as soon as I go to sleep. Like the girl in "50 First Dates," I start each day as a blank slate and begin re-reading. Finally, it occurred to me--take notes!

I investigated some of the suggested wikis, starting with Library Success: A best practices wiki. I looked at the suggestions for book club reading guides and found BookBrowse.com Reading Guides, Reading Group Guides, both of which are useful, and S.C.O.R.E. Cyberguides, directed primarily toward teachers and no longer updated.

Some teachers are doing remarkable work with students. This Holocaust Wiki Project is so good and so interesting that I would like to join in myself! The Holocaust Museum Houston (Holocaust Museum Houston : Home) is always adding to their database of resources for school projects, and I know the librarian will be very pleased to learn about this one!

Other wikis such as Core Competencies wiki are devoted to staff technology training, although this one may have been accessed but not added to. Others are developed for librarians especially interested in library instruction.

Thanks to a certain individual who keeps me on my toes, I have had a bit of experience the past few days on pbwiki. It isn't really hard to get started, but the formatting can be difficult, and I am very glad that formatting wasn't my part of the project! My friend tells me that one has to let the wiki be a wiki and do its thing, and I was very grateful to be the follower rather than the leader in this adventure!

The project my colleague was working on was a wiki for interdisciplinary research with a resources bank which teachers could add to. I can see the benefits for both teachers and students as they share their information.

1 comment:

VWB said...

I think you hit it on the head when you said that some of the wikis look unfinished or not updated...that was one of the issues with wikis that I had until I finally got it thru my thick head..that is one of the major reasons for wikis...work places and when the work is done...the finished product often ends up somewhere else!
If I would just quit trying to make everything "fit" the old way, all this new stuff would be so much easier...I have to keep practicing to just - let - it - go!