I'm pretty familiar with Wikis - I'll occasionally use wikipedia as a starting point, and have seen quite a few wikis on a variety of topics - some better than others, of course. I did find some of the readings interesting, and enjoyed checking out some of the wikis mentioned. The idea of anyone being able to contribute is fun - everyone has their own expertise and it can be valuable to see more than one viewpoint about a topic. That being said, the age old question remains though - authority. This isn't such an issue for every wiki, but of course librarians are concerned about this, and rightly so. There is a lot of bad information out there, and I can understand a teacher's concern about using Wikipedia as a source. I use it as a starting point, but don't rely on its information without double checking.
It seems to me that a teacher has to be careful about limiting sources, but we are all well aware that information found out on the web sometimes must be taken with a grain of salt - if at all. That's where authority control can be important.
Wikis can be very useful for many different organizations - libraries, schools, families....One of my friends set up a wiki for family pictures, and we even taught her grandma to log in. A great way for her to be able to keep up with those grandkids! Those working on group projects might find a wiki very useful as well. Class assignments could even be done as a wiki since modifications are tracked. Each person/group could work on an aspect of a topic, and the information can be shared. The teacher could be the moderator, and update/correct as needed.
I just noodled around a little on the front page of the 23 Things wiki to see how it works. Didn't have much of interest to say! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment