Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Thing TEN

Thing TEN is all about Wikis. The wiki I chose to edit was the 23thingsonastick wiki. The concept is great - what a collaboration tool! I like the fact that you can edit a document or entry without any knowledge of HTML. It is definitely fulfilling its mission: finding a way to easily collaborate and share information. I especially liked the format of the PBwiki page. You already know it's going to be easy, with a logo like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They really make it sound simple - no IT needed. If they have it so you can either post public or private (with password protection) then it's a safe and fun way for students to enter their thoughts, or opinions. We have a "suggestion box" in our library. Nothing has ever been put in it. I would bet that if we had an online wiki, which encouraged students to be frank about things, we would have some real suggestions!

What a great resource for the library staff to pass on information to each other. And to add and edit what's being presented. Many times we learn a new way of doing things or go "wow I didn't know that feature was there" as well as hear from students that we are doing things wrong, or that there are errors on our webpage, or that the IT people just let one of us in on a new technique or way to solve a problem that we should share with the rest of the staff. Rather than call the staff together, it would be pretty practical to post it to the wiki. This is already a major teaching and learning tool in our MnPALS consortium.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wanted to share a link with you:

www.SuggestionBox.com

You could setup an online suggestion box for your library here.

More Mead's Musings said...

Thanks. Good "suggestion". Hopefully we can set up that application when we get our college library blog going...if we can get the students away from the only blogging they know: Facebook and MySpace.