Future Changes » Links

UW-Milwaukee course: Why Wiki?, Zoho Wiki, StolenID Search

Stewart Mader — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:50:58 +0000

UW-Milwaukee has a 4-part course entitled Why Wiki? available online from the UWM Libraries web site. It’s an excellent introduction to the wiki and look at some of the issues surrounding Wikipedia, and it will be on my short list of highly recommended resources. One small thing I’m concerned about lately is that too many people think that all wiki sites are like Wikipedia – but that’s not a complaint about this course since it’s very clear that Wikipedia is one example of a wiki.

- via Technology and Instruction for UNEX – thanks Brian for linking to Using Wiki in Education! The post linking to Why Wiki? also has links to Wikis in online education at UIUC, and Elliott Masie’s LearningWiki.

Zoho Wiki was recently launched, and is well integrated with other tools in the Zoho lineup, like Zoho Sheet (spreadsheet/chart), Zoho Show (slideshow), and Zoho Creator (quick forms and data collection applications). After trying out the wiki, I think it’s a solid addition to Zoho’s suite of web-based office tools. It fits in well with the free, hosted category of wiki tools aimed at small groups, students, etc. who need something that’s quick to set up and use.

StolenID Search is a new service which lets you enter your credit card or social security number and see if it appears in places online that would indicate it has been stolen or compromised. The site is run by TrustedID, a provider of identity theft protection services, and it’s both a useful tool and a good way to advertise the company’s services when you’re in the right frame of mind to consider buying them.

Links: We Are Smarter Than Me, memorizable.org, wikiCalc

Stewart Mader — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:51:41 +0000

Campus Technology reports that MIT and Wharton will publish a textbook collaboratively written on a wiki, called, “We Are Smarter Than Me.” The authors have invited the public to help create what they’re calling a “networked book.” More information is available at wearesmarter.org.

memorizable.org is a wiki where one can create “memorizable tables” which it defines as “an efficient flashcard-like way to memorize information on a web page.” The site takes advantage of the editing simplicity of the wiki so people can quickly create flashcards to practice memorization, and share them with others. This is one of the coolest uses of a wiki!

Dan Bricklin announced on his blog that his open source wiki spreadsheet tool called wikiCalc is out of beta and available as a “1.0″ product. It looks like an interesting tool, and certainly newsworthy since he’s the creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet software for personal computers. For your routine wiki spreadsheet needs (for a class assignment, or group project) I’d stick with tools like Google Docs & Spreadsheets or EditGrid. There’s nothing to install, it takes only a minute or two to get started and invite collaborators, and you can export spreadsheets in standard formats like CSV, or publish to a blog.

Links: GMU Wiki Workshop, Wikipedia and democratic debate, “The Tiny, Mighty Link”

Stewart Mader — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:40:23 +0000

GMU Wiki Workshop: Nice to see that Rick Reo at George Mason University (one of the coauthors of Using Wiki in Education, the wiki-based book) is running a wiki workshop this week. Based on Rick’s contribution to the book, I’d say the GMU faculty who attend are in for a treat!

Who knows? Wikipedia, Teaching and Research: A very interesting article from Holger Szesnat of the Society of Biblical Literature. I think this quote sums up the perspective of the article: “The more popular the topic that I would want to write on, the more likely it is that I will have to negotiate and discuss the issue with a variety of people…One does not always want to discuss what feels like Remedial Hermeneutics 001 at Doonesbury’s Walden College. On the other hand, it is precisely such a democratic debate that is a positive communication challenge for academics.” One downside of the article is that its focus on Wikipedia might contribute to the skewed view of of the wiki that some people get after their first exposure to it is Wikipedia. On the other hand, the article takes a pragmatic, thoughtful approach that left me thinking very positively about its author, and his ability to juxtapose the issues surrounding the wiki. He also cited Using Wiki in Education in the bibliography!

The Tiny, Mighty Link: I just stumbled on this fun post from Alan Levine, a friend and fellow technology blogger. He examines the path one follows when surfing away and clicking on links that raise interest. Of course, it’s nice that his example in this post was my blog, and how I store & deliver presentations online using CarbonMade.

Links: useful topical wiki sites

Stewart Mader — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:10:07 +0000

The Design Encyclopedia – A growing, collaborative resource that describes, tracks and explains culture, commerce, politics, media, sports, brands â€“ everything possible, really â€“ through design. The encyclopedia has Rules of (Wiki) Engagement, which is a very good way to help new users understand how a wiki works and how to get involved.

Teaching Hacks Wiki – A how-to guide for integrating blogs, wikis, RSS, IM, photo & video sharing, etc. into your teaching. Encyclopedia of Earth – wiki written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other’s work.

PlanetMath – mathematics encyclopedia with entries written and reviewed by members.

Mentat Wiki – collaborative environment for exploring ways to become a better thinker.

School Computing Wiki – A collaborative guide to information technology in K-12 schools that you can edit.

Links: Wikimapia, Startup School Wiki

Stewart Mader — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:49:03 +0000

Inspired by Google Maps and Wikipedia, Wikimapia is a map/wiki mashup where one can add a wiki entry about any place in the world. It works with Google Earth, and GPS devices, and requires the community to vote on the addition of places, which is a good way to ensure a critical mass of people contributes to the entries on places.
The Startup School Wiki was created to organize all the information generated at the 2006 Startup School held at Stanford University. This is a good example of how a wiki can be used for backchannel information gathering during a conference session or lecture. Imagine how deeply engaged students could be if you did this for your class!

Links: The Power of We, Europe: the Jobs Machine, New Clicks in the Arab World

Stewart Mader — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 19:12:03 +0000

The Power of We – Companies are using YouTube-like technology to tap the ideas and energy of employees. As more companies adopt social networks, wiki, blog, and other collaborative knowledge construction and sharing tools, it becomes ever more imperative for education to prepare students to be savvy users.
Europe: the Jobs Machine – Despite its laggard reputation, Europe continues to grow faster, and create more jobs, than America. In Europe, the shift to an information economy is driving unprecedented job growth in industries that rely on information, and in turn social networks and knowledge construction tools become critically important.
New Clicks in the Arab World – Bloggers Challenge Longtime Cultural, Political Restrictions. Tadween – the Arabic word for blogging was only coined this year, but is a reflection of the rapidly growing popularity of blogging as a way to express views in a political and cultural climate that heavily limits open discussion. It is said that the Internet by design reroutes itself around restrictions, and this is an example of that principle in action.

Links: how to start an activity centric wiki, Wetpaint please touch, Creative ads

Stewart Mader — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 02:03:29 +0000

How to start an activity centric wiki – good information from Wiki That, a blog that focuses on wiki uses for civic and enterprise groups.
Wetpaint Please Touch – Wetpaint has created a very cool collaborative art site, where you can create a piece of digital art, then pass it on for others to contribute to before displaying it in the public gallery on their site.
Here are some examples of creativity at its best – some very clever advertisements from around the world. [via Hemmy.net, a source of varied interests]

Links: Top Five Wired Nations, results of study on Digital Millennials,

Stewart Mader — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:38:21 +0000

Top Five Wired Nations – 1 Singapore, 2 Denmark, 3 Canada, 4 Sweden, 5 United States (via digg)
Consulting firm Resource Interactive conducted an eight week study of Digital Millennials – the results are a must read for anyone who wants to understand today’s students. During her keynote at the Shop.org Annual Summit in New York this morning, Resource Interactive CEO & Chief Experience Officer Kelly Mooney said, “Digital millennials see the world differently than previous generations for a long list of societal, cultural and economic reasons.” The 14-24 age group has grown up knowing a world that has been â€œalways electronically connected, portable and customizable.â€ The technology immersion of the digital millennials is what is visible from the outside. On the inside, the digital millennials are breeding a new social order by using technology for â€œsharing, creating and validating via peer networks,â€ or social networking. (via Digital Micro-Markets)

Links: Duke University Wiki, Writely gets positive review from AP writer, review of Web2.0 tools for students

Stewart Mader — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 03:54:49 +0000

Writely gets positive review from Associated Press writer – Jessica Mintz, a Business Writer for the Associated Press, reviews Writely and finds it to be a solid writing and collaboration tool, albeit with a little polishing needed in a few places. “Writely stores documents without assigning any particular format. Users who want to download the document to their hard drives can save as HTML, rich text, Word, OpenOffice or Portable Document Format files.” This is an important point because it illustrates the real importance of the Internet to information. Web-based tools keep information format-independent which is better for knowledge construction, and also makes it easier to output that information in the optimal format depending on how it will be used.
She also makes an important point about collaboration: “In the past, if five people needed to edit a report, some poor soul was stuck making sure changes were incorporated into one master document. With Writely, documents can be shared by sending an e-mail invitation to any number of people. All can work on the same page simultaneously; Writely saves often and keeps track of revisions, highlighting changes and additions from different editors in bright colors.”
Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0 – Brian Benzinger, a fellow 9rules member, is writing a 3 part series on Web 2.0 tools that students might find useful. He covers a wide range of tools, including, organization, presentation, collaboration, to do list, gradebook, and resume writing to name just a few. Wiki tools like JotSpot and Writely (I consider Writely a very wiki-like tool although it’s officially a web word processor) are included in his reviews. Overall, this is a very useful guide to what’s available.
Duiki: The Wiki of Duke University – “Duiki stems from the ideas of several individuals for implementing a freely accessible, freely editable, and extremely user-friendly website where useful and entertaining information about the city and the university can be collected. The central concept of Duiki is the ability for anyone to create an illustrated “entry” describing a place, event, person, or idea related to Duke, and make it possible for others to find and reference the entry in order to organize and build on the content.”

Links: Value of Wikis, Looking At Social Media Ecologies

Stewart Mader — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 13:16:34 +0000

Value of Wikis – from a great new blog called Bent Rules that I just found via the comments on the recent TechCrunch post about Socialtext 2.0. Aaron Wright has some great insight on how the wiki satisifies an information need better than other tools, as evidenced by this excerpt from this post: “Think about it. What will better serve the interests of a niche community, let’s say interested in botany, a magazine (or encyclopedia) that only releases 12 issues per year (updated at most once a year) and a limited amount of static information. Or, an information community which not only has encyclopedic information but also other articles on a given topic that can range from the common “How to?” to people expressing a passion for various aspects of botany.”
Smart Mobs has a great post called Looking At Social Media Ecologies which examines the role of creators and synthesizers in constructing knowledge. Howard Rhiengold suggests that creators are often “ousiders” in a project like Wikipedia because they aren’t involved in the management of the site itself, but their contributions account for most of the information added to the wiki. Synthesizers, hs says, are people deeply involved with the project who use their knowledge of its overall structure to help assimilate the contributed information.