Thing 10: Wikis

Prior to doing this thing my only experience with "wikis" was Wikipedia. My experience with Wikipedia has not been all bad nor has it been all good. When it comes to wikis it's like I have a line down the middle of my brain. I LOVE the idea of an open forum where people can go, to post opinions, ideas and information, to share with others. I run into problems when ideas and opinions become "facts" because the sheer number of people who agree with them, outnumber those who challenge them. Stephen Colbert calls it wikiality - or "a reality where, if enough people agree with a notion, it must be true".

Working here in The Library, I see many students cite Wikipedia, as well as other [more] questionable websites, in research papers. The prevalance of Wikipedia in bibliographies and works cited, I believe, is because a student's first stop, when doing research, is Google. They enter a search string and, invariably, one of the first ten hits is gonna be a Wikipedia link. This has become sort of a habit for many people. Tom Waits made a comment some years ago that "hands are like dogs", in that they always go back to what is familiar. I think this is pretty accurate in respect to how people do research online.

I don't think limiting information by format will necessarily get the results some instructors are looking for. I think teaching the students how to be descriminating researchers, and how to evaluate the quality of information and souces might be a better approach.

I can see using a wiki for working collaboratively on a best practices project at our school or as a reader's advisory. It seems really well suited for these types of things.

I added the photo below to the 23 Things... wiki:















This photo has nothing to do with anything on the 23 Things on a Stick wiki. However, it does show Prince Randian sitting upright. Which is awesome.