27th August 2008

Wikis (WebQuest Week 5)

I have read through the tutorial Wiki Wonders, which describes a wiki as follows:

A hosted service that allows you to create a webpage for free with shared online editing for group working. This means that anyone you have given permission to can access the site and add/edit/save the wiki. You can also track the changes made by others. Wikis make excellent Intranet subsitutes, are a useful asset for project management or creating a report with multiple authors and for adding extra information through hyperlinked pages. Providers include PBwiki and Wetpaint. The name originates from the Hawaiian for ‘quick’. The most famous example of a wiki is Wikipedia.

The WebQuest asks the question, What is the main difference between a Weblog and a Wiki?  I would say that a weblog could be used primarily for recording information in journal style from day to day.  A wiki on the other hand facilitates collaborative working, for example project management and report writing, because it can be easily edited by everyone involved.  

I found the  article by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb on http://www.oreillynet.com more useable than a webinar I watched – PJB-100 PBWiki Fundamentals.  The instructions on the webinar are not clear and it isn’t suitable for a beginner.  The article is much more user-friendly as it can be printed and read at a reasonable pace.

The instructions on Moodle were not  helpful either because the website pbwiki.com seems to have changed since they were written.  The Moodle instructions also assume prior knowledge and I do not think that they are suitable for unsupervised learning.

Fortunately however Ian was around and he helped me to set up a basic wiki.  The URL is http://www.doowyam.pbwiki.com.  It is a test site showing how a wiki could be used for library marketing.  On this, I created pages, inserted links, and added a sidebar with links to a page within the wiki and to other websites.