Thing #15 Wikis and How Libraries Are Using Them

Wikis are great for groups to communicate ideas because everyone can add and edit. Mary Woodard has used PBWikis several times with MISD library projects. The last project I worked on was rewriting our librarian evaluation instrument. Our committee met once a month to discuss various sections of the project and share ideas. Then Mary would put our suggestions on the wiki, and our committee would go in and add or change these during the month. This gave everyone more time to think about suggestions and formulate new ideas; the committee had an equal opportunity to give their opinions.

Through the links in this discovery exercise, I found several fantastic ideas. The SJCPL Subject Guide revealed some awesome ideas for a public (or school) library. Their subject guides were incredibly detailed. The St. Joseph County Public Library also let every patron know they could "talk to the library" in 5 ways:

• by blog
• subject guide (check out this section on Cooking)
• email
• instant messaging
• library card

There were several wiki ideas I can't wait to share with my classroom teachers. Westwood Schools Wiki and AP World History Wiki were wonderful examples of how wikis can be used with students. Welker's Wikinomics (an economics teacher from the Shanghai American School) was my favorite classroom wiki, the best example of how a teacher can manage classroom projects through wikis. The teacher also had each student create a blog to discuss articles they had read, and each of their blogs had a link from the wiki. No wonder this wiki won the Edublog Award for Best Educational Wiki.

Some applications for wikis in my school are using them with our Site-Based Decision Making committee, class project pages, and incorporating wikis into our library catalog.