Things # 8: Wiki(s)

My first impression on Wiki(s) is open source online encyclopedia. Most of the times when I type some information about illness, history, important dates, name of cities, etc., in a search engine, the result will showing some Wiki(s) addresses. So, my conclusion was Wiki(s) as online encyclopedia.

But, after exploring some of the sites given on the reading, I have come into understanding that Wiki(s) is not and online encyclopedia, but it is a collaborative Web 2.0 tools that can be utilized to develop a website which become source of sharing knowledge, information, portal (it's like a portal for a library to post what they have and give a brief description on their books that they have), documentation, etc. Here is simple wikis introduction in plain English by Lee LeFever from Commoncraft. 

Since Wiki(s) most of them are share publicly, the owner of the page should do a regular check on the changes that happen on his/her Wiki(s) page just to ensure that things posted there is valid, reliable and useful information, otherwise the Wiki(s) page will be source of junk or misleading information.

With it's flexibility and simplicity, we can utilize Wiki to create a database of sharing knowledge either subject based or school year based to encourage teachers to share their knowledge, lesson plans, internet sources, journals and videos to enrich each other knowledge.

Other thing that can we utilize from Wiki is creating student personal wiki as documentation for every assignments that the student has throughout the school year. Teacher can interact with the students through their wikis by giving feedback, tasks or questions. Follow this link to find out how to utilize wiki in education, there are many great examples on that site.