I would discourage kids from using Wikipedia for most current events or controversial topic types of reports (unless the purpose is to analyze content for bias), but some of the old reliable stuff - animal reports, biographies - is covered well on this site. It was interesting to compare the Minnewiki information with the Wikipedia information on Bob Dylan. Wikipedia has much more in-depth information, many endnotes and more off-site links. It's a great catch to find a site about Minnesota musicians, though. I think we have to teach kids to be discerning consumers of information, and banning the use of Wikipedia seems pointless to me. A better practice might be to have students make comparisons of information to determine the reliability of the information they find there - which may be too much work so they would CHOOSE not to use it!
I love the concept of a wiki - open adding and editing of a document, exchanging ideas. It reminds me of being able to cooperatively edit Zoho/Google Docs documents. It seems that a few of the library wikis are more a collection of links in directories, which is fine for pointing out information for "tech-challenged" folks. The St. Joseph County Public Library system and Library Bloggers wikis fit that bill. I don't know if they would be any more beneficial than a good ol' Google search, but I haven't spoken with these folks to see if they value their wikis. The Webjunction article espouses the use of wikis for subject guides, and I have to admit that teachers (and our media specialists) have collections of links we use with kids. Using a wiki is much easier than having to update a website, so I can see how that is valuable. By the way, love that WebJunction site!
I'm much more enthused by the BookLoversWiki. It kind of reminds me of Book Crossing (although that site has a different purpose and is not a wiki) in that people can leave reviews of books. I would love to set up a book review site - in fact, I already know which teacher I want to talk to about it!
This is the wiki I started for favorite books. I still have to think through implementation. I haven't decided whether to just have staff add books, or to open it up to students. I have to think about posting issues. I really like the Zoho apps.
I do like the Library Success wiki because it supports library advocacy, which is an area that we began looking at last year. There's a lot of great stuff on there, and it would be nice to see the school information expanded. There's a blurb at the bottom that a Minnesota media specialist used to gather information, rather than offer information, but in there was a nifty site for teens reviewing books. Good example to start a new wiki from.
We've never been able to encourage media specialists in our district to engage in discussions on forums set up to share ideas. I like the wiki that the Albany staff uses. We have a portal, which seems to work in a similar manner, although it's a little less like a wiki, and more like a "library" in that you check out a document to edit and then check it back in. Still, it's nice to see documents and information listed in one place, rather than having to chase them down.
Last thought: I edited the 23 Things wiki - I added a bit about accessing images on the "Content" page. The red is me:
- For the Flickr assignment, not everyone has a digital camera so some tips on how to use a scanner in a library or private resident would be appreicated - perhaps an overview of image search engines would be valuable also (including copyright issues)
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