Ahh, wikis.......I have been looking at them for almost a year. The resources here have caused many ideas to begin popping into my head for how they would be useful in the classroom and the library, such as a wiki for book reviews, for resources (such as pathfinders), for collaborative research, and for staff projects. Last fall at CSLA I learned a great deal about the application of wikis in a workshop with Doug Achterman and David Loertscher, but the knowledge hasn't resulted in any action, yet. The idea of collaborative note-taking is intriguing. I wonder how it compares to Google's doc's collaborative capabilities. Google docs is pretty darn easy to use.
For me to be comfortable with this format, I will need to create and use my own authentic wiki first, so I think I will develop a wiki around our efforts to start our first Battle of the Books among the middle schools in our district. I think this will be a great way for all of us to be involved in the planning process in a more effective way than sending dozens of e-mails around and around.
So, I guess what I am wondering at this point is which wiki software would work best. I like the look of pbwiki, I have templates created in seedwiki, wikimedia has a familiar look because the design is like Wikipedia. Does anyone have an recommendations for a free wiki application? Hoping to get lots of comments!!
1 comment:
KnagaLMT@,
I have used seedwiki and pbwiki quite a bit. Seedwiki had the "Word" -like tool bar, which makes writing on a wiki as easy as word processing, so I pretty much migrated to seedwiki. I like their help wiki and get good response when I have a problem. I even know the tech guys names. Ken and Stephan. I have fooled around a bit with myspace backgrounds, CSS styles, etc, and been generally more successful jazzing up my wiki on seedwiki. I pay for a blue account about 150 per year, so I've password control and a few other features. They have been down maybe 10 minutes of critical time for me. I can tolerate that sort of stuff, but some teachers were really driven nuts be that down time. I am going to stay with seedwiki for the most part as I have been satisfied. Right now I don't like their new display, when I sign in I can only see half view of my wikis names, but I am willing to do what I need to to make tis right.
That said, I think pbwiki's new features are great. I love their spreadsheet, their new easy editor, and I have never had a pbwiki down. So I think it might be what you get comfortable with.
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