Wiki Madness!

I seem to have Wiki on the brain these days! I’m going to try and do this week’s blog entry in a couple of small parts rather than a large one, as Cindy and I are working away creating our wiki for the class next week. I had one of those moments where my brain seemed to fail me for a few minutes- I said “my brain seems to be full”. No more information please!

I have found that many of the blogs that I have discovered in the course of doing these weekly blog posts also have wikis- like the Cool Cat Teacher Blog. I also found out from the Cool Cat Teacher blog that the term “wiki” is Hawaiian and it means “quickly”. I wasn’t aware that it meant anything at all- I figured it was one of those internet words that just sounds cool. One more thing for the brain! I knew that the term “wiki” has to be related to www.wikipedia.org, but I wasn’t quite sure how- after a little time on Google, I found out!

As with most of my Web 2.0 research, I started- where else?- wikipedia . That site provided me with a very clear definition for the term “wiki”:

“A wiki is software that allows users to easily create, edit, and link pages together. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. These wiki websites are often also referred to as wikis; for example, Wikipedia is one of the best known wikis”.

I have to admit that after looking at a few wikis, I feel they are very similar to blogs- there is a post and people are encouraged to respond. The main difference being that blogs are more of a vehicle for individuals to express their opinions and the readers can leave their feedback, comments or questions to the author. The public can see these comments, but there is not usually a whole lot of interaction. Wikis provide a similar opportunity, but instead of just one person sharing their thoughts and opinions, they encourage many people to contribute and it is more of an actual dialogue between the readers, or contributors.

This past week I have only had the opportunity to respond to group 1’s wiki space- I will go to group 2 after I complete this post- and Cindy and I are still organizing ours, but we have yet to add anything to it. I found the whole process quite easy. The first time I tried to edit the site a little red message popped up and said that Ronda was editing the page and I should try back in 5 minutes. I was wondering how they would do that, as there could be a lot of people trying to edit the same page. I actually waited 10 minutes and I had no problems. Very simple. It was encouraging to see that because I was a little apprehensive about creating our wiki. It seems to work in a very similar way to creating or editing a blog post.

I just wanted to share my initial thoughts on wikis before the weekend got too far away from me. I am going to have a peek at the next group’s page and see if I can’t fit more into this head of mine!

That's what I think of wikis- so far... Katie

P.S. My new library program is great and I think that it accounts for the lack of brain function this week- lots of new things to learn!!