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The Wackiness And Serenity of Wikis

Brian shares yet another brilliant article draft "Wikis: Hypertext on Steroids", worth reading and following links from if you are looking for what may be the next edge-like instructional technology.

For those who have not "wiki-d" it is an intensively interlinked web site where any visitor can edit and create new information. It bends your head backwards until you see when it works well, most notably the open content reference encyclopedia WikiPedia which this year has managed to surpass the Encyclopedia Brontosaurus, er, I mean Britannica.

I have just begun first forays into some wiki experiments, which from experience are excellent for remote collaboration and building of resource collections. Brian is a few steps ahead with his AdventuresInWikiLand.

A struggle I have with wiki entries is a usual lack of context or navigation if you end up on node or page within a wiki of content say via a web search- typically there are no other navigation links unless deliberately entered, and the only way out to find more is to navigate to the top of the wiki. Invariably I get lost in wikis or trudging around in hypertext circles.

But for some un-intuittive reason, wikis work for many topics or projects. I look to discover more this year as one of our most innovative faculty requested a wiki place to play (that was enough motivation for me to get one installed).

Finally, I just love the version of the Wiki Serenity prayer that Brian noted:

Please, grant me the serenity to accept the pages I cannot edit,
The courage to edit the pages I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

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