Wiki

Yesterday I was introduced to Wiki's. I first learned that it means "quick" in Hawaiian. This "quickness" is translated into the speed in which you can edit, write, and share a wiki page with anyone or a select group. Wiki has many pros but also some cons. Using wiki can be beneficial in the classroom through numerous activities including virtual field trips, class scrap books, weekly newsletter, peer paper editing, group discussions, research projects, and so forth. Wiki is can also be beneficial to teachers in planning grade wide lessons, sharing ideas, drafting projects, and coordinating meetings. Wiki has also come a long way in providing reliable resources and information. It still is not recognized as a scholarly source but it can be a good starting reference for many projects. Downfalls of Wiki include its emphasis on group consensus. Wiki is not good for individual projects and those who use it for group projects or editing need to be cautious of other's feelings. That said, one should not take group input or editing personal when working on a wiki. Other cons include the inability of the wiki to allow more than one group member to edit a page at the same time. Never steal the lock from the current user, they can lose all that they had just written. It would be wise to save your individual contribution to the wiki on a word document because it is possible that someone could accidentally delete the segment during editing.