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* "How do you use PBwiki?"
* "Is PBwiki safe?"
* "How does collaboration work?"
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This course exceeded my expectations on every level, and I am so happy to have been a part of it. I have learned so much! Reflecting on the experience has made me realize just how much information I have absorbed over the past few weeks. I could go on and on, but it wouldn't be very structured, so here are my answers to the questions posed by the 5weeks creators:

Favorite Experiences:

• Webcasts (once I got all the technology glitches worked out on my old computer - easy solution was to just buy a new one!). I particularly enjoyed the webcast on flickr given by Steve and Michael - they were so much fun!
• Weekly online chats - I really got used to the dynamic of online chatting (which I had never done before) and learned what it takes to communicate effectively in that medium.
• Variety of sources of information - podcasts, online readings, screencasts - all were effective in their own ways and got me used to using them.
• Reading other peoples blogs and profiles and meeting such great people!
• Looking at the other 5weeks members Flickr photos

Technology most useful to me:

I know it was mentioned by Meredith and others that wikis were great resources that were underused, but now that I have spent the last two weeks seeking wiki software for my library's liaison program, I'm a believer.  It's ironic that the wiki week was the week I didn't post (this is my make-up post) because the wiki has become my favorite part of the social software course.  First and foremost, wikis are more versatile than blogs and more manageable than html pages.  Unlike blogs you can have a "home page" and keep the most important pieces of information front and center.  Blogs rely on navigation bars and links to get to that kind of information.  Secondly, it promotes collaboration (the ultimate goal) and allows the host to see who is doing what on the page.  Without knowing html.  Without using Dreamweaver.  Without trying to create style sheets.  Without trying to create the perfect table.  I'm all about the wiki.

I really liked the idea Chad Boeninger gave for using wikis in a first-year experience setting. I think it would be neat to read the thoughts and ideas of the students. It would give staff and faculty an insight into the mind of freshmen or students in general. The wiki could be maintained by the library and the library staff member or faculty would pose a different question every week or so. The questions might relate to the library, campus technology, work study experiences, or athletics, for example. Other students might start to think that maybe the library isn't such a bad place after all, especially if they are hosting a project such as this. If the wiki focused only on freshmen, older students might not be as interested in reading the wiki entries. But perhaps the library could select a few students that they track throughout their college career. This may be an even better idea for a blog. But I think students could still add new things they had learned about the campus to the wiki, for others to benefit. Also, we recently started a pilot program for instant message reference and although it seems obvious, I didn't think about using common IMed or email reference questions as the basis for a wiki page.

Well, we're starting to work (again) on our wiki which we started a month or so ago - and now we plan on working on it more because of this class!

I know it is very rough and not much happening yet, but check back in the next month or so and I promise there will be more! 

 http://www.nvclibrary.pbwiki.com/

Proposal for Implementing an Internal Staff Wiki at Northwest Vista College

Technology to be implemented: Wiki

A wiki is an easy way to create a web page with very little technical knowledge. One need not know HTML or any other markup language. Wikis are a collaborative tool in that anyone can add or edit content on the page.

In this case I am proposing that we establish an internal staff wiki for our library. Only the staff and work-study students would have access to it and its main goal would be to improve communication between everyone in the library. All staff would benefit from this, especially the part-time staff and faculty as it would keep them updated on a daily basis of what has gone on while they may not have been there. The wiki would provide a documented record of important events within the library to keep everyone informed equally. A wiki would create a searchable, collaborative knowledge base for our library that would help us all keep up with what is going on rather than depending on word of mouth or emails.

We were listening to the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio show when my husband's jaw dropped and he said, "The Hitchhiker's Guide is a wiki! No wonder coverage is so uneven!"

I missed last week's webcast on wikis, so my group leader suggested that I view the archived presentation and post a comment to about it to my blog (to meet course requirements!)  So here it is:

 I think the pairing of these two presentations is excellent.  Chad Boeninger's presentation about wikis at Ohio University using the examples from Bizwiki, along with his general information and guidelines for best practices, is an effective segue into Starr Hoffman's step-by-step setup of a wiki on pbwiki.  The dual presentation made me consider again how important it is to think before diving in:  to have a mutual understanding of the purpose of the wiki among participating team members, to start out with a structure, and to have a commitment by members to participate regularly.

Weighing in late on the wiki subject, so a lot of people have made fantastic observations about wikis. I'll throw another one for us to play with out there: TiddlyWiki. This might be old news to some, but take a minute to play with a very portable wiki. it does a lot of the cool things that you expect wikis to do and (here's the fun bit) it saves as a single file, so you can have it wherever you like. Instead of creating new pages, you make smalelementscaled tiddlers, which can be tagged for all the 2.0ness you can handle.

Seriously, though. I have found this perfect for keeping track of my new liaising duties. It's like interactive, linking 3x5 cards (and who doesn't love those). I can create a tiddler for every faculty with their research intersets (and a link to their personal page), one for important resources (with links to the OPAC--or resource if it's not cataloged), one for projects I'm working on, and so on. Very easy, very flexible--like all the good software we've explored.

Heard about them on NPR this morning.

http://wikileaks.org/index-en

"Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis."

Beth