A wiki experiment

For anyone who might like to try participating in a wiki (collaborative writing environment), I have put a draft version of my next Media Matters column for Leading & Learning on a free wiki site:  Jot Spot. Log on with "guest" (no quotes) as both your username and password. If you make changes, and feel free to do so, please add your name or initials to the bottom of the document so I can see how many people contributed. I will note in the printed column that it was wiki-ized.

I'm doing this for a couple reasons. First, the topic is one on which I do not particually consider myself an expert  -  web logs. There are many  experienced folks who can increase the value and accuracy of the column for the eventual print reader if willing to make some additions and/or changes.

Second, I'd  just like to see how this wiki business pans out. I am not, by nature, a collaborative writer. Other than asking the LWW to proof read my writing for its most egregious errors in grammar and clarity, I don't like other people touching my nouns, verbs, or, especially, my adjectives. I am keeping my draft of the column in good-old Word just in case people really muck this up. (OK, I am uneasy.)

If this works, I may be on to a real time-saving ploy. Perhaps I can just throw an outline or even an idea out on a wiki and let the world write for me! I have a book that desperately needs revision. Should the wiki-sphere have a go at that too? The possibilities are mind-numbing and very appealing to this latent sloth.

Comments

[Sara Kelly Johns]

You mean the revision of Indispensible Librarian isn't done yet? Sigh...we need that one, Doug, but I can see that you might want to keep on adding new technology to it and never finish it. A chapter on wikis and blogs? Well, you can always send people to your blog for updates...

[John Dyer]

Doug,In SLP we have also experimented by putting up wikis for media specialist meeting agendas, staff development offerings, and even a template for revising our information literacy curriculum. All have been well-received by media specialists. Teachers are coming along, as is our principal. It's hard to give up control, but the potential benefits, as Tim O'Reilly outlines, are substantial.John PS I find it fascinating all the new information terms that I add to my Google Toolbar spell-checker (in FireFox) as I spell check comments to these technology and education blogs. Looks like Ray Kurzweil might be right about being in the "knee" of exponential change in technology.

[Steve O'Hear]

More on blogging
http://www.ohear.net/full_publication.php?publicationID=18