Nothing to do with wikis - Kindle

Yeah, I know I've been deliquent in keeping up with my blog.  And so when I finally do write, my entry has nothing to do with my wiki topic. 

Today I got a Kindle e-book reader.  Reading on a Kindle causes less eye-strain than my computer.  It's easy to use, and so incredibly thin and light.  I've only read using the Kindle.  Kindle allows you to make notes, surf the web (I think), and to let you listen to the book being read to you.  Haven't tried those features.  I'll let you know how the work. 

I wonder if students can get e-textbooks on Kindle?  It would be heaven to not have to carry 40 lbs of book around.  The Kindle is not robust, so the current version would not be good for kids.  A ruggedized e-book reader needs to be created, and text book publishers need to publish e-text versions.  I suppose you could read these ebooks/etexts on a computer, too.  Think of all the paper and money one could save! 

I'll keep you informed.

Kinds of Wikis

Wikis are collaborative.  A wiki is a tool that can be used by a group that not only wants to accomplish something, but also wants its members to add to and edit the collection of ideas and data. 

There are basically four categories of wikis:

• Content-focused wikis
• Process-focused wikis
• Community-focused wikis
• Ease-of-use wikis

Content wikis focus on specific kind of content: cooking, poodles breeding, travel.

Process wikis are used to work in collaboration on a project (which was the original reason the wiki was created.

Community wikis allow a community to gather and share information.  A community can be a city, a neighborhood association, an association (i.e., of fundraising professionals), or a group (i.e, of stay-at-home moms or home-schoolers).

Ease-of-use wikis are wikis that are used to solve problems, or to serve as websites or to share information with its members. (I'll admit that this category is a little vague.)

Here's an interesting education wiki that provides curricula to K-12 educators: www.curriki.org

Here is how Curriki.org describes themselves:

"Curriki, a play on the words 'curriculum' and 'wiki', is a not-for-profit organization that is building the first and only Internet site for Open Source Curriculum (OSC), which will provide universal access to free curricula and instructional materials for grades K-12.

'We are focusing initially on developing an online repository for K-12 curricula in the areas of mathematics, science, technology, reading and language arts, and languages. We want this repository to attract everyone from educators, students and parents, to programmers, instructional designers, authors and public officials throughout the world to contribute or freely access quality learning materials."


And I'll close by introducing the wiki I just created tonight: 611wiki.wikispaces.com 
 Go check it out!  Feel free to make a page. It was incredibly easy. To create a new page click on New Page on the left.  Click Edit to create your page.  Add you content. Then save.  If you want to add content to my page, do so.

What's a Wiki?

Back in 1994, Ward Cunningham, the father of the wiki,  needed a collaborative work environment that would allow all the members of his project team to post  content in a single spot, would allow members to easily edit the content, and would allow all members to see the edits.   He created a wiki: "a collection of webpages that anyone can edit" (Woods and Thoeny, 2007).  These pages can be linked together.  The interface is easy so that ANYONE can edit the pages without having to understand how to write in html code.  There is no webslave to change wiki content.

Wikis encourage collaboration.  Members are encouraged to add new pages to capture their content, and to edit existing pages.  Wikis encourage work-in-progress. 

The most famous wiki is Wikipedia.  Members can add content and edit any page in Wikipedia.

For a quick tutorial on wikis and how they work take a look at the "Wikis in Plain English" video on Youtube.com.

As for the name "wiki".... Ward called his creation WikiWikiWeb.  "WikiWiki" is Hawaiian for "quick".  WikiWikiWeb eventually was shortened to "wiki", and name was used to name the wiki concept.

Reference

Woods, D., & Thoeny, P. (2007) Wikis for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing.