Thing #16 Learn about Wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them
I went to checkout some of the wikis that were in the discovery exercise: the book lovers wiki from Princeton, the library instruction wiki and the school wiki were all different but interesting to look at. There are so many different ways that wikis can be used, I think that as a collaborative tool, it's a great way to share and build on information.
I like that the student wikis are password protected. That provides an extra layer of protection to the students' work.
Wikis seem to have a place in school libraries and I think that students would really respond to using this technology and working collaboratively within their classes to share and expand upon their research. I think the hurdle would be in getting the teachers to buy into using this technology. I think that kids would get excited about doing research projects this way. It would also teach them an additional web 2.0 skill. It seems that baby steps are the ticket to moving forward with this type of collaboration within school libraries and classrooms.
My midterm for my class at SJSU required my group to create a wiki and work collaboratively on a topic and research from there. I was a little unsure of myself at first, but once I got the hang of creating my part of the wiki, it was actually kind of fun. Our main topic was social networking and I think we did a good job on our research. I will not post the link to this wiki because it has not been graded yet and do not want anyone to edit any of the content (yet!).
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2 comments:
You and wikis are moving along fast. PBwiki, for example, has added all sorts of new features and improved the look since a year ago when we set up the SLL2.0 wiki, California 2.0 Curriculum Connections.
Best wishes.
I want to encourage you to keep using wikis in one form or another. I created a pbwiki for my library to use at a staff development session I did for our Social Science Dept. last fall. I have since expanded it to include pages for a senior English project, a senior government project, a place to post links to good online citation guides, and a page with Jane Austen links for all of our Jane Austen fans at school when PBS started showing all the Austen videos in January.
It has been so easy to add things to the wiki, and so far everyone has appreciated having it. I only spent about 30 minutes with the senior English teachers, gave them the password, and they were posting and linking the parts of the senior English project on the page. It's been great. I look forward to learning more about using one with a class project with pages created by students. It's all pretty amazing.
You are almost done. Keep up the great work!
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