For Thing #16, we’re supposed to learn about wikis and explore some.
My 13-year-old son, a few years ago, was the one who introduced me to wikipedia. He loves to have his browser access a random article and read it. He’ll look at wikipedia to research something specific, and then get snagged into reading about something else. Since that was a reason people would give for having an encyclopedia set in the home, it seems like a good thing!
Although I do remind him to take Wikipedia information with a grain of salt, I’ve been reminded that the venerable Oxford English Dictionary started life as a wiki. But compiling the little slips of paper that people used to present definitions of words was a much more tedious process than today’s internet!
We used PBwiki in my Resources for Youth class in order to create a group website. It was much simpler than what the other groups were using.
Wikis are perfect when you want to have lots of people contributing to a website, and a wonderful way to do a group project.