Week 7, Thing #16: Wikis

First of all, I love the name. Wiki. It just sounds like something fun. And it turns out that wikis are fun. Like most folks, I believe that Wikipedia was the first wiki that I heard of. There has certainly been lots of discussion at our school about whether or not Wikipedia is a valid research source for students. Our staff seems to be divided on the question.
One interesting aspect of wikis to me is that the main benefit of a wiki seems to also be its main weakness. All wiki users are potential authors, which makes a wiki great for collaboration. But since all wiki users are potential authors, it is possible for opinions to replace facts or for an entry to be edited to emphasize a particular point of view.
I like the fact that wikis allow anyone to take part in creating a collaborative website without any prior knowledge of HTML or programming. All you need is a web browser. And I like the fact that prior drafts of documents are available for users.
Our examples allowed us to examine wikis created for many different purposes, from a special event wiki to a subject guide wikis. The wikis I liked most included the "Library Instruction Resources" wiki and the teacherlibrarian wiki by Joyce Valenza (does she never sleep?) The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County wiki on core competencies was interesting, especially since PLCMC is where I got my start in the library world as a page.
I noticed that a lot of the school wikis that I looked at had no entries from anyone other than the librarian or teacher who created the wiki. I guess that advertising is important when creating a wiki so that it does encourage collaboration.
The main uses I see right now for wikis at school are in collaborative writing and as subject guides for research projects. I hope to set up a wiki for our school so that teachers in various subject areas can add their favorite sites, tips, and documents to a central location that everyone can utilize. I also hope to encourage teachers to use wikis with their classes when appropriate. In the library, I may move our procedures notebook to a wiki, and I also want to set up a wiki for students to comment on books. I want our library to be the center of the wiki world at our school.