Blog Post #5: Wikis.....

Hello,

I began to learn about wiki’s on youtube viewing the ‘wikis in plain english’ video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

I instantly related to the hypothetical scenario discussed in the video. The video discussed 4 friends trying to email back and forth to organize a camping trip. Instead or sending out countless emails to each other and making sure to include all members in each email, a ‘wiki’ could be used. Before I discuss more aspects of a ‘wiki’ I just wanted to state some obstacles and/or difficulties that groups encounter in trying to organize group emails. Also note that the use of a ‘wiki’ solves all of these re-occurring problems encountered with group emails.

In organizing group emails the initial ‘sender’ must remember to include all email addresses of a particular group. If people are forgotten then other ‘recipients’ could include missed members if they quickly ‘cc’d’ that person in a ‘reply-all’ email. This gets challenging because new email messages composed by group members must use the ‘reply-all’ message with the missed cc’d members or else any new emails will neglect to include the original missed members as well. Regular email is kind of limited in this regard. Regular email doesn’t update email lists in real time, in response to newly included or removed members. With a ‘wiki’ you can always be adding or removing people to the group list.

Another con to regular email is the accidental comments or poor choice of words offered up by some insensitive group members, either on purpose or by accident. Once you type something and send it, an email cannot be changed. The only option a sender has is to create an entirely different email with corrections noted. Within a wiki anyone can change a comment instantly or add on to the information already contributed. I can remember many instances where I am sure family members would have loved to have been able to change their comments within a group email.

As you may have guest, a ‘wiki’ is a private webpage shared only by members of the wiki. Non-members cannot view or change the pages. A wiki is like a meeting place where members can gather and share, or review information. Once an account is created, friends can be added to the list of people who can read and post items on the wiki. The concept of a wiki reminds me of the concept of conserving paper, in this case electronic paper.

I signed up for a wiki page on https://my.pbworks.com/
I chose this site over three others offered by the youtube video I watched. This site was free and it seemed pretty straightforward to navigate through and sign up for a page. This wiki page also had no advertising and didn’t look overly busy with banners of photos etc. The page I created is at the following address: http://regenslibe477page.pbworks.com/w/page/37183511/FrontPage . Please visit this page and email me if you want to be included. I set the settings to ‘public’ so I’m sure anyone can see it and write on it. Hopefully this was alright to select ‘public’ for the security settings.

In the future I’d like to research the methods these wiki sites use to determine which posts take priority over other posts in reference to times posted. For instance, if two people logged onto the same wiki at similar times and began to modify the same wiki page and then posted their results, which post would appear as the most recent change? Could someone’s post or alteration therefore be ‘cancelled’ out if someone were to make a change a few seconds afterwards? I would also like to research whether users could make their posts read-only or in other words make their posts impossible to alter? I guess if wikis employed this kind of read-only style of post that it would defeat the purpose of a wiki. Having users post responses that cannot be changed is more like a blog or a discussion board than a wiki.

In terms of educational purposes, wiki’s could definitely be used to initiate students to discuss classroom issues and promote more online discussion. I think students would find it exciting to be able to change other students post in order to clarify ideas and make posts more accurate.