Thing 10 - Wiki-wiki-WHEEE!

Well, Wikis were not something completely foreign to me (I have been coming around to their use as a research tool slowly but surely), but up until now I had never "participated" in one. Logging into the 23 Things Wiki showed me just how easy it is to edit a page. This ease of access is still probably the one thing that concerns me about wikis. I am all for collaboration, but I must admit that I am concerned about the consequences of publishing "anonymouusly." Particularly in a school setting, I do have some reservations about opening up a webpage to let anyone say just about anything they want (it is MY rear end that is on the line, professionally).

In looking at the library-based Wikis offered, I guess I was most intrigued by the Princeton Library Wiki. If I were to use one in my job - this would probably be the one most like the one I would offer. I have always thought about having student-written book reviews on my library website but have always had trouble with the logistics of such a venture. Maybe a wiki is the way to go. I still have some concerns about security - but maybe I just have to trust a bit more. A lot of this will have to come down to my school's internet/computer usage policies, so I will have to wait until the fall to find out how feasible it is.

As for the great "Wikipedia as a research tool debate," I have to admit that I am coming around on this one. I admit, when I was teaching high school English, I cringed at the thought of my students automatically turning to Wikipedia as their main (if not only) source of information. After taking a class on research this past semester, I began to see that Wikipedia is not the haphazard free-for-all I thought it was. Now that I have had a bit more experience with it, I have come to find that Wikipedia can be a great starting point for research. The key here being that the student still has to go a bit deeper to find all the information he/she needs (as well as to verify what he/she found). In the end, I think Wikipedia is a very valuable tool (when used properly) and that wikis themselves may be something that I incorporate into my own job when I find the proper place for it.

Thing 9 - GoogleDocs and Zoho

Basically - I didn't see a whole lot of difference between these two programs. Both seemed to work very similarly to any basic word processing program. The Google document (as evident by the much greater number of alterations)was much easier to access with Zoho requiring an invitation via email. While this was slightly inconvenient for the purpose of what we are doing, it does seem to be a nice security feature if you want to protect your work.

As far as a school library goes - I really don't see much of a connection. However, if I were still in the classroom, I would LOVE a tool like this. I think it would be a great way for kids to work on a group project together.