Thing 16: Wikis

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.

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