The topic of wikis has been on my mind a lot lately. For those of you who are not familiar with the term wiki- here is my simple definition: A website that allows the typical viewer to become a contributer and editor of the site. At the bottom of this post I've embedded a video that explains wikis really well.
There are many different wiki companies. A year ago I did quite a bit of research and determined that the best wiki for my needs was done by a company called MindTouch Deki. The wiki they create is called DekiWiki. I've used their services for probably 5 different wikis. The thing that is so great about it is that anybody can create content. Here is a link to my family wiki: http://neis.wik.is.
While my family wiki is cute and nice for my family stuff, there is much greater application that I see. Wikis have changed my perception of teaching and learning. In the Bachelor of Business Administration program at Westminster College we have developed a wiki to host the entire curriculum. I'm amazed at the amount of information that has been composed for this wiki by a relative small group of people. My hope is that it will grow and grow over the next couple of years to the point where faculty don't have to do all the contributions- the community behind it will.
One last thought. Most people think of wikis are Wikipedia- wikis are not necessarily wikipedia. However, wikipedia is awesome, there is so much knowledge stored there it is mind boggling. However, there are many other wikis out there. The problem I see is that these wikis don't work together. I'd like to see somebody write a search engine that searches all wikis. Maybe it already exists? Maybe that should be my million dollar idea? Look out Google, here I come!
No comments:
Post a Comment