Being new to the use of wikis, I was intrigued by the initial use. After the readings and viewing of the example wikis I am even more amazed at the various ways that they can be used in education. The idea of using wikis as student portfolios and science fair projects were two that really stood out to me.
The media center would be an excellent way introduce wikis to the staff and share ideas for the media center. I like the idea of teachers and media specialist creating pathfinders and having them posted on the wiki. I believe that teachers and media specialist have the opportunity for more collaboration by posting on the wiki since each person can add, edit, or modify contents.
Wikis are also a great way to communicate with other educators in the same field. The combination of pathfinders and wikis makes for an excellent research guide...especially if there are several contributorsOur county's media specialists have just started a Wiki within the last two weeks and I am looking forward to using this to aid in my instructional needs as well as communicating with other media specialists. I was excited to see that one of the wikis that I looked had links to how to find books and anther wiki highlighted things that are happening int he library. I would like to use the wiki to show teachers and students that the media center is not just a place to get books, but that it can be an exciting place to be.
To me, the most effective way that I see wikis being used today, is for collaboration with classroom teachers and with those in the same field as myself. The main drawback that I see to wikis is the fact the others have the ability to change and sometimes add things that may not be appropriate or suitable. Of course this can be avoided if only group members have the authoriztion to modify the content of the wiki. This can also be avoided by checking wiki regularly to see if anything negative has been posted.
I am genuinally excited about learning more about wikis and eventually linking it to our school's website.
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Your concerns about the misuse of wikis are well-justified. One of the wikis I looked at, Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki (http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page)
has an update message on it about past 'vandalism' and the new protocol they are following. (By the way, this is an interesting wiki. Look at the 'Professional' section and then the 'Looking for a Job' to get some good pointers!)
An interesting feature that wikis have (at least wikispaces wikis) is the 'Notify' feature that automatically notifies administrators of any changes. If the change is inappropriate, it can be easily deleted.
Happy wiki-ing!
I agree with your ideas of using wikis for pathfinders. Wiki pathfinders allow you to link with ease. Wiki pathfinders also allow the user to easily upload documents. Pathfinders can now host presentations, handouts, rubrics, organizers, as well as models of student work. Wikis are excellent collaborative documents. Wikis allow you to invite individual collaborators (teachers or students or mentors or experts) or, if you are brave, to allow the world to collaborate. How awesome is that?!
I was also intrigued with the use of Wiki's in a school setting. I agree with you that this would be a great group collaboration tool. Teachers and media specialist could insert their lesson plans on a wiki and actually make changes or insert other ideas. Then when they meet together most of the work would already be done. It would not take as long and they could also address questions and concerns, or brainstorm new ideas.
I think using the Wiki to keep teachers and parents informed about the happenings in the library is a great idea. Too often the library is seen as an isolated area apart from the "real" instruction that goes on in the classroom. By using the Wikis, the media specialist could inform teachers of available books in the media center that align with the curriculum being taught. Links to web sites about various topics could be prescreened and added to the Wiki as well. The possiblilites are limited only by the imagination. As teachers see how useful and informative Wikis can be, they also may become interesting in learning more about them. Providing a means for teachers to collaborate with each other is always a useful tool in any school setting.
I think the idea of using the wiki to highlight more than just books in the media center is excellent. Pointing out upcoming events, like a book fair or author visit, as well as highlighting the work of students in teachers is an important usage of the LMS time and energy.
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