18: Work with a Wiki

As Thing 17 introduced you to wikis, it's time to get your hands dirty and contribute to a wiki. Before we do, let's review a bit about wikis with this video from the Common Craft Show.

Discovery Exercise:

Pick one of the following wikis to contribute to:

1. EASY--Play in our wiki sandbox for our 23 Things project. (Many wikis have a sandbox which is a designated area where new users can "play around" with wiki formatting, features and editing.) Go to this wiki site and contribute two items to the favorite categories of your choice. There are fun categories such as favorite restaurant and favorite tv shows. 
    
2. MEDIUM--Contribute to the Academy of the Sacred Heart's Wikipedia entry. It needs some work! In Feb. 2010, Wikipedia reported ASH was a 9-12 institution. See if you can correct/add to our entry.  Creating a Wikipedia account will let you try the Beta editing tool which is a big improvement over the current editor. 
   
   
3. MEDIUM TO HARD--Contribute to Wikipedia on a topic you know something about or are prepared to research. Looking for something less scholarly? Try Wikia.

Create a post on your blog that details your experience with Thing 18. Which option did you choose? Was it easy to contribute? How does contributing to a wiki compare to a discussion say in Moodle (or some other course management system)? Now that you had a chance to contribute to a wiki, can you think of others ways you might use one?

<--Thing 17  Main  Thing 19-->

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Optional Extension Exercise:
Want to set up your own wiki? Try one of these tools: WikiSpaces or PBworks.  Both offer free no-ad versions for educators.