Thing 12: Wikis

You know, I was just thinking - who came up with up with the word "wiki"? All I can think of is when someone's using a record to scratch - the sound is that "wiki wiki" sound, and somehow I doubt that's it.

OK - just went to dictionary.com and looked up the origin of the word. It comes from a term coined by Howard G. Cunningham - WikiWikiWeb, a software he developed. The term "wiki wiki" is Hawaiian for "quick". In 1995 Ward Cunningham created the wiki as we know it today. *Etymology lesson over.*

Wikipedia and other wikis are the bane of teachers' existence, and I can see why. How reliable is the information on a site that anyone can edit? The nice thing about it, is that it is a quick answer when you have a question or two AND you can always click on the links listed under "Resources" at the bottom (in case you want other, possibly more reliable information). Banning wikis doesn't irk me quite so much as when they won't accept stuff from our databases. So what if it was found online - these are legitimate newspapers, magazines, and books, whose information has been put out on the WWW! Get with the times people!

I gave editing the NEFLIN wiki a whirl - it was easy, but not something I'm going to use all the time. All of this technology requires a commitment, and I have far too many things going on in my real life, making such commitment almost impossible. One of the blogs I'm following mentioned using it for book lists and the like. I am actually compiling a number of those right now, but I think I might post it on something like Lazybase instead, so I can lock it if I want to.