Contributing to Wiki’s
Wikis are one of the more interesting technologies to come around in the past few years. People have always collaborated on writing, but with wikis, large numbers of people can work together to build a substantial collection of information. Although you may not see the appeal of wikis at first, once you start actively editing with friends and family you’ll begin to see why wikis are popular for personal projects.
• Tool history and context
The creation of the first wiki website became possible as result of the emergence of the Worldwide Web. In 1995, Ward Cunningham, a computer programmer, produced this amazing tool to facilitate communication between software developers. Cunningham named it the “WikiWikiWeb”. The Wiki was such a great success, that other computer programmers immediately began to try to imitate this unique tool. These “wiki clones” were mostly used by software developers. Soon, however, the WikiWikiWeb began to unfold with additional features that attracted a growing body of users. Wikis began to be better known to the general public with the emergence of the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia in 2001. From that point forward, the number of wiki websites and wiki engines exploded, and now thousands can be found on the web.
In 1999, the World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee looked back on the previous decade and lamented: “I wanted the Web to be what I call an interactive space where everybody can edit [italics added]. And I started saying ‘interactive,’ and then I read in the media that the Web was great because it was ‘interactive,’ meaning you could click. This is not what I meant by interactivity”1
Wikis better embody Berners-Lee’s vision of editing interactivity for the World Wide Web.
A wiki in general, encourages the creation of a verifiable product because of its very nature of incorporating strict peer review. Wikis keep participants constantly “on their toes” as they are always in a state of either peer “reviewer” or “reviewed”. Adding to or correcting someone’s article, places important responsibility on the participant, one which is to be taken seriously, in light of this persistent peer review.
How Is the Tool Commonly Used?
The use of wikis has seen amazing growth in the last few years, becoming a favorite teamwork tool for educators, business professionals, and increasingly, members of the church who are interested in connecting and sharing. This versatile tool has been used for such tasks as collecting conventional wisdom, conducting social experiments, authoring massive online encyclopedias, posting classroom content, perfecting documents, and sharing the Gospel across continents. Wikis have proven a great blessing to many, helping them communicate both within their organization, and to people outside their group.
Education: Teachers find wikis helpful for hosting student research projects, journals, group summaries of readings, collections of student work for portfolios, syllabus information, event calendars and even online newspapers. Here’s a site with a few more suggestions:
Higher-Ed Wikis ─ Provides a list of suggestions for uses of wikis in higher education.
