Week 3 - Wikis

To successfully complete No. 3 - Wikis you must...

READ this blog post.
DO and THINK about the information in the "Learn More About" activities.
LEARN by completing the Hands On Activities, including reading the Important Tips.

Your total time commitment is about 45 minutes.

Introduction to Wikis

A wiki is a collaborative web site and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. Wikis are popular collaboration tools because they allow registered or unregistered users to add, edit or delete content without knowing HTML or other web-based computer languages, track changes made by users and revisit different versions of wiki pages.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, organizations and businesses all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Municipal government can best use wikis to promote civic engagement by allowing citizens to directly contribute their ideas.


"Learn More About" Wikis


1. Read the article Wide Open Spaces: Wiki Ready or Not by Brian Lamb at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0452.pdf. (Time Commitment 5 - 10 minutes). Yes, this is an old article. It is dated 2005. But, it's a good one.

2. Watch this video on YouTube, Wikis in Plain English, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY. (Time Commitment 3:52 minutes)

3. Do the Wikipedia Tutorial at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial. (Time commitment 5 -10 minutes)


Hands On Activity

You will collaborate with many others in the largest wiki project --- Wikipedia.

Part 1 - Collaborate using Wikipedia

Step 1. Create an account (view screenshot)

• Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&returnto=Main_Page.
• In the Log in box, select the link Create account.
• If you already have an account, ignore the rest of these steps, sign in and proceed to Step 2.
• You will need to enter some personal information into the online form to create the account. First, scroll down the web page a little and read the Wikipedia rules about user names, passwords and privacy.
• Enter a user name, a password (twice), a email account and the word verification.
• Select the Create Account button.
• Wikipedia will send you an email with your account information.

Part 2 - Create or Edit a wiki page in Wikipedia

NOTE 1 - The first time you use mediawiki, the wiki software that powers Wikipedia, it's too stressful to create a new wiki page. So, please just make a small edit on a wiki page that interests you.

• Select a topic in which you are very knowledgable. For example, the Virginia Beach Public Library System has a wiki page in Wikipedia. You can improve this wiki page by adding internal links. They are links to other related Wikipedia wiki pages. There is only one internal link in the VBPL wiki page. It's Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• You can easily find a wiki page by using the Search box on the left hand side of your computer screen at the site.
• Modify the wiki page that you selected by choosing the Edit this page tab at the top of your computer screen. NOTE: You will only see this tab if you are signed into Wikipedia.
• Type in the new information or links.
• Preview the changes by selecting the Show Preview button.
• If you made an edit, fill out the Edit summary box so that other wiki contributors will understand what you did and NOT challenge it.
• Save your changes by selecting the Save Changes button.

NOTE 2 - Mediawiki uses wiki coding language to make the wiki pages. You do not need to understand this computer language to make an edit or create a wiki page. You can use the buttons at the top of the editor. They look like the buttons that you find in MS Word. For example, the B button is bold. If you like to code things, please see the coding cheat sheet at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet.

Part 3 - Create a blog post about your Wii experience

• Sign onto Blogger at http://www.blogger.com/ by entering your user name and password.
• Select the new post link in your dashboard or the create link under the Posting tab.
• Use the compose tab to type a brief message about your experience with this hands-on activity. Questions to get you started: Was it easy? How can your team or work group use this tool for collaboration and increased productivity.
• Label post: Week 3 - Wikis
• When you have finished typing and are ready to publish your thoughts, select the orange button, "publish post". This will add the post to your blog. If you select the blue button, "save now", the blog post will be added to your list of posts for editing and publishing at a later time.

Important - Tips, Hints and Tricks

1. You must create an account and sign in before you can edit Wikipedia wiki pages.
2. Save your Wikipedia account information, you will need it every time you get the urge to play in the world's largest sandbox.
3. Don't get stressed out over the wiki coding; anybody can create or modify wiki pages.