Thing 10: Learn about wikis

To be honest, I was pretty interested in learning about wikis, because I've heard them talked about often and really didn't know what they were or how they worked. So this Thing has been very educational for me. Staff in our library have talked about the potential a wiki could have, but I think there are some policy issues that would have to be addressed first. We talked about how a wiki could get teens and younger people onto the library site more, and how it could be used, but I think we're still a while away from implementing something like that.
I first heard about wikis last year, when I was an English department graduate student and a teaching assistant. The writing program administrator was very much into technology and these Web 2.0 tools, and so he was always encouraging us to try them out; in fact, he's the reason I knew how to blog before this challenge. He encouraged classes to devise their own wiki pages, but I was nowhere near that technologically adept at that point, so I never did create one. But now that I've explored it a little bit, I can see the benefits of having one. I really liked the library wiki that had book reviews by patrons, and I think that would be one way to use that in our library.
One thing I'm still trying to figure out is how I feel about Wikipedia. As a writing instructor who was trying to teach students how to do research and evaluate sources, Wikipedia posed a bit of a problem, because anyone can edit and add information to the site. After reading more about how Wikipedia actually works, I think it would be most effective as a starting point for research. I still wouldn't want students to cite Wikipedia as a source in their papers, but I do think it would be helpful for finding sources they could cite, and that would also show them how to decide on the effectiveness of that particular Wikipedia entry. I know that I use it often when people want information, and if it doesn't seem that the information is good, it often does give some kind of reference. I think actually using Wikipedia as a focus in evaluating sources would be a great lesson for students. I do like the idea that anyone can contribute and become an editor, and may be something I will have to look into in more detail!