What I like about wiki’s (and wikipedia)

I’ve written about wiki’s before, but a recent conversation with my supervisor has spurned additional thought.

1. I hate wiki’s inside of learning management systems (like moodle or blackboard).  I think the value of wiki’s is from their long-term collaborative use - so why erase it every term? I also like sharing information with folks outside an organization.

2. I love wiki’s when they are used for creation of a student textbook. Students write articles as graded assignments. Soon the class has created a full textbook!

3. Wiki’s are great for clubs and extra-curricular activities - easy to update by large groups of people.

4. I find students are excellent sysops. 

5. Wiki’s are built from the ground up for multi user editing - recent changes, user groups, categories, etc…

6. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I like the way wiki’s force users to evaluate the information they are seeing. Very important.

On 11 August 2009, Sebastian Nguyen inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

Someone thought that Wikipedia is the greatest of human achievements.  I tend to agree.  After all, the great pyramids were built by perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.  Wikipedia is built by millions.

On 12 September 2009, cam balkon inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

Your blog is useful information for me.Thanks…