Monday, February 28, 2011

Week 7: Thing #16--Wikis

Several of the wikis listed on the Week 7 list stood out for me. St. Joseph County Public Library's Subject Guides:  Wow! What a great resource. This is an outstanding reason to create a wiki--using a collective brain to recommend books. Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki is a practical resource for new and experienced librarians. Some, like Welcome to the Blogging Libraries Wiki probably offer great information, but the format is so uninviting that I just couldn't love it.

I have participated in creating wikis for group assignments in the past. but I have never set one up for the library. I can see that the calendar function, survey, and discussion board, would all be outstanding resources for the classroom and for the library. The ability to put links on a navigation column--and the ease of the navigation bar--all create a very friendly environment on the Westwood wiki found in the Sample School wiki. Wiki: A Beginner's Look is a really useful, user friendly resource/idea bank that is ready to go for students and faculty. I also really like the wiki for WebJunction: the ability to organize so many resources in one spot, without the stress of a website....

I am going to have my Library TAs create a wiki after reading the PLCMC Information Core Competencies  on wikis. Then I think we will create one together on TA Core Competencies at NHS Library. At this moment, I have Library TAs working on an Inspiration outline and concept web based on a WikiHow project. They are to complete one of the projects, then put it into Inspiration, showing what they had to do to accomplish the project, with more details than in the WikiHow. Students are uploading pictures of their projects and some are bringing samples. A few are including pictures from Picasa or Flickr for their presentations. It seems like a perfect segue.

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