Monday, May 14, 2007

Wikis (Week 7; #s 16-17)

Well finally to wikis.
I've used wikis for a long time and even set one up on PBwiki thinking I would use it for library instruction. As with so many things (including Bessie's Blog) I find I don't have the time to work on it. I've looked at some of the examples of school library wikis provided in the lessons and some look kind of intriguing although many seem to show the problem people have distinguishing wikis and blogs. It's a problem I have myself although conceptually I think I can tell them apart.
I recently asked my district's tech director if he couldn't download MediaWiki software (the software that runs Wikipedia) and it turns out we already had it on one of district's servers. Not much there though, just some guides to choosing an LCD projector. I tried setting up a page and right away ran into a problem (Whenever they say something is easy or fool-proof just let me at it--I'll show them how easy it is to mess up and just how easy it is to make fool of oneself. ;>)
The best tool I saw among the examples was the subject guides put uo by the St. Joseph County Public Library system. They were well done and seemed easy to use. I think I'd be willing to give something like those for my library web site.
I'm also thinking that a wiki could be used for bibliographies I've developed over the years of books in different genres. Once again time is the enemy. Moving something form one medium to another is takes time. I'm really looking forward to getting AquaBrowser up and running and seeing what could be done to develop lists (tagging--back to Week 6) of read-alikes, etc.
Aha, I just though of something that might be wiki-able. I need to publish the summer reading list soon and maybe instead of just doing a web page I could do a wiki. I'm also working on a list of books that have been approved by the Board of Trustees for use in the various English classes. That might be worth wiki-ing as well.
Keep posted.

1 comment:

Jackie S, 2.0 project manager said...

Be sure to add something to the California 2.0 Curriculum Connections Wiki -- wikis are as good as the content added. Add your humor, too!