Things 16-17

#16-Discovering Wikis
This excercise gave me a good excuse to get beyond Wikipedia. That site drives me up a tree! However, I did find out that the site now does some sort of editing for content, so that is a big plus for me. By using other sites, I was able to see how wikis can be used in a more formal, structured setting. I looked at St Joseph County, Book Lovers, Library Success and Bull Run. All were very well laid out and easy to follow. Using a wiki for a reading program is nothing short of genius as far as I'm concerned, but since interactive websites are mostly off-limits, I will not be doing this with any of my students. A girl can dream though... Exactly how are we supposed to teach 21st century and technology skills if everything is blocked? Sorry, I digress. Even though each site was distinct and had its own flavor, they were all well done and worked for its own purpose. I found Book Lovers like LibraryThing, only much easier to meander around in. Maybe LibraryThing isn't a wiki? I'm not sure what its status is. Hmm...

#17-Add an entry to wiki sandbox
The term "sandbox" is a completely new one to me. I have never heard of a spot where a person can just play around on a wiki to see how it operates. Great idea! I did not actually post to Learning 2.0, but I have contributed to Programapedia through PALS. It's a wiki designed to help PALS members find library programs based on cost, audience, and theme. Time has passed by since my last visit; I will have to stop by soon to see how things are progressing. The class I took to learn how to use it was put on by the library system and done well. But the shortcuts were a little more involved than I anticipated. A year later and I still remember how to insert a "pipe"...or maybe not. ah, there we go! Amazing what nuggest of knowledge stick around in the brain. Putting in information was fairly easy; type and hit "submit" or "OK". It was the editing and formatting that made me think a certificate in C++ would be a good addition to the credentials. Also, there was no "sandbox" available for us to play in. We added our information or dummy info and let the instructors know if they had to remove it for us later on. This will definitely help the teachers! No more cleaning up after students (even if it's in electronic form, picking up after students is the pits) when class is done. Yeah!!