Week 7, #’s 16 & 17

I enjoy using wikis. I have used wikis to collaborate in graduate classes and I have set up a wiki for my library.  Arrowhead Library Wiki is yet another way I can help my students focus on information that is useful and worthwhile. I have not set up a wiki for students to edit yet.  That is something I have been trying to do in collaboration with teachers in my building.  I would like to see the next research project become a wiki.  I started researching Internet Safety and Cyberbullying in the hopes that I could get it to become part of the library curriculum.  I have not kept up the wiki but plan to use it during my district’s strategic planning to help technology committee members collaborate on Cyber-safety for our children.  Conference wikis like the one started by CSLA are fun whether you are able to attend the conference or not.  So much information is shared on the wiki that it can help you learn from the conference attendants and speakers without attending the conference.   I am a member of or have started 25 wikis on wikispaces alone.  I like wikispaces better than other wikis but if I am going to be able to use wikis with students it will probably be one like pbwiki because my superiors believe it is safer and offers less exposure for students.  I did check out the educators pbwiki.  It is filled with helpful information and links.  I can see using this wiki for my own professional development. 

I have several favorite wikis that I use as part of my own professional development.  One of my favorite two wikis on the net are the LM_Net wiki where LM_Net list serve members can post documents since the list serve can not handle attachments. 

The other wiki that I frequent often is Eduwiki.us.  It is so filled with resources that I can spend all afternoon exploring and never hit the same  website twice. 

I went to the California 2.0 Curriculum Connections Wiki on pbwiki and took a look at the 65 ideas listed for using a wiki for collaboration towards a common goal.  I love idea #5 where students become responsible for creating pathfinder lists of links to reference information.  By putting the links on the wiki all students in the group or class have access to the information.  As a librarian I love that the wiki models proper citation of sources and a bibliography at the bottom of the site.  I have to give more thought to starting a book talk wiki for my students to add their opinions about the books they have read.  Collaborative book reviews can also be posted to our Destiny library catalog.  I also added idea # 11 about Wordle to the Online application and Tools page.