Wiki Discussion
In the past, I have used wikis on committee work and with my collegues as we planned events and I found the format very successful. This semester, I started using wikis as research guides for my information literacy sessions. I was looking for a way to make my classes more interactive and I wanted to give the students an opportunity to share research tips and strategies they were using. So far, this project has been relatively successful. The students are not exactly "rushing" to sign on to the guides. However, because of the "tracking feature" on pbwiki, I have been able to see how many students use the guides. This is a small but important feature for us as we begin to look as IL assessment. The web based platform of pbwiki has been another benefit of creating the guides in this format. My collegues and I are thrilled with its ease of use and that we can do some of the work from home. And, the more we use them, the more we learn about other features they offer!
Here is a link to some of my guide:
World War II
Death and Dying
Introduction to American Studies
-Leigh Keller Ramapo College
I have conducted several professional development sessions to introduce my high school faculty to wikis. For teachers, wikis and blogs can be a fast and easy way to create a web presence without the hassle of having to learn a web-authoring tool, such as FrontPage or Dream Weaver. If you can type, you can wiki! In several cases, teachers have incorporated wikis into their instructional practice. For example, a music teacher created a wiki for students to post proposed lyrics for a graduation theme song.
I have also taught high school students how to use wikis, and they love them. Because the design interface of most wikis so closely resembles other tools students are used to using (e.g., the Word toolbar), the amount of instruction required is minimal. If you just show the kids a few basics, they'll experiment and take it from there. Here's an example a wiki created by a team of my students: Safarica (the password is africa).
While collaborating with other professionals, I have found that wikis are a great way to brainstorm ideas and collaborate on refining them. Here are some examples of my collaborative projects created via wiki:
Martha Hickson
North Hunterdon High School
Annandale, NJ
At the Sussex County Library, one of our staff members (Will Porter, a member of the HRLC Tech. Committee) created a wiki for our circulation department procedures. This is updated regularly, and is a great resource for circulation staff scattered among six locations in the County. It ensures that everyone has the same information, eliminates the need to constantly update paper manuals, is easy and quick to access, and is available to everyone at the same time (no need to track down the manual when you have a question--just open up the wiki!). Our biggest challenge is getting staff in the habit of looking at this on a regular basis--does anyone have any tips to help us/that have worked for you in this regard?
I'm planning to start a wiki for our Tech. Services procedures and policies, so that we will have a central place to find these things rather than going through various pieces of paper or tracking down the person who has the information in their head. I was excited to see, in looking through the wikis in Challenge #2, that some libraries are already doing this, which will be helpful to me in getting this organized and going.
If you know of good Tech. Services wikis that I should check out, I'd love to hear about them!
Ellen Callanan
Sussex County Library System
One of my all-time favorite wikis is the Library Success Best Practices wiki at
http://www.libsuccess.org. It is a great place to find information about library management, marketing, technology and more -- and you can share your own information and success stories here as well as finding out about other good ideas. This site is a great example of using the CASE method -- "copy and steal everything." Why reinvent the wheel if you don't have to?
As a member of the New Jersey Library Association's Small Libraries Roundtable, I also want to say that we've got a wiki as well -- and if you work in a small library and want to contribute to it, we welcome your input. You can view it at njsmalllib.pbwiki.com.
Mary Martin
Long Hill Township Library
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