Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online Review

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Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online ReviewPurchase from Amazon.com is lovely thing , the item i purchased is very interristing , i found it valuable and very helpfull to my study.Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community OnlineSocial Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online Overview

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High-Tech Teaching Success A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Innovative Technology in Your Classroom Review

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High-Tech Teaching Success A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Innovative Technology in Your Classroom ReviewHigh-Tech Teaching Success tells teachers how to bring technology into the classroom, offering keys to using Google Earth, blogs, digital diaries, Facebook and other popular online sites in the teaching process. From classroom web sites to digital teaching, this is an excellent review of how technological opportunities can integrate into any classroom teacher's objectives.
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Empower English Language Learners With Tools From the Web Review

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Empower English Language Learners With Tools From the Web ReviewLori Langer de Ramirez's EMPOWER ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS WITH TOOLS FROM THE WEB shows how web 2.0 tools can help English language learning, and comes from a nationally known expert on ESL teaching and curriculum development. Classroom strategies explored here provide step-by-step guidelines for using a range of Web tools and activities and make for a powerful survey.
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The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking Review

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The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking ReviewFour signs that you are seriously behind the Internet-driven times: 1) You type "www" in front of Web addresses, 2) You think "geek" is a term of derision, 3) You subscribe to TV Guide and 4) You have a landline. If these descriptions fit you, then you will find Maria Azua's book eye-opening. She describes online developments such as wikis, cloud computing, crowdsourcing, widgets, social bookmarking, folksonomies, avatars and all the rest - and explains what they can do for your business. However, if you are already an experienced social networker, Azua's guide will be a review of familiar information. getAbstract recommends this book to businesspeople who are feeling mystified by the Internet - that is, anyone who needs to update his or her Web skills. Online, it's a new world. Azua's book provides a good map.The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking Overview

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Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge Review

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Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge ReviewI was initially disappointed, but adjusted my expectations when I reminded myself that the author is at root a lawyer. The bottom line on this book is that it provided a very educated and well-footnoted discourse the nature and prospects for group deliberation, but there are three *huge* missing pieces:
1) Education as the necessary continuous foundation for deliberation
2) Collective Intelligence as an emerging discipline (see the Innovators spread sheet at Earth Intelligence Network); and
3) No reference to Serious Games/Games for Change or budgets as a foundation for planning the future rather than predicting it.
In the general overview the author discusses information cocoons (self-segregation and myopia) and information influences/social pressures that can repress free thinking and sharing.
The four big problems that he finds in the history of deliberation are amplifying errors; hidden profiles & favoring common or "familiar" knowledge; cascades & polarization; and negative reinforements from being within a narrow group.
Today I am missing a meeting on Predictive Markets in DC (AEI-Brookings) and while I regret that, I have thoroughly enjoyed the author's deep look at Prediction Markets, with special reference to Google and Microsoft use of these internally. This book, at a minimum, provides the very best overview of prediction markets that I have come across. At the end of the book is an appendix listing 18 specific predictions markets with their URLs.
The author goes on to provide an overview of the Wiki world, and is generally very kind to Jimbo Wales and Wikipedia, and less focused on the many altneratives and enhancements of the open Wiki. It would have been helpful here to have some insights for the general reader on Doug Englebart's Open Hypertextdocument System (OHS) and Pierre Levy's Information Economy Meta Language (IEML), both of which may well leave the mob-like open wiki's in the dust.
Worthy of note: Soar Technology is quoted as saying that Wikis cut project development time in half.
The book draws to a close with further discussion of the challenges of self-segregation, the options for aggregating views and knowledge and for encouraging feedback, and the urgency of finding incentives to induce full disclosure and full participation from all who have something to contribute.
This book excels in its own narrowly-chosen domain, but it is isolated from the larger scheme of things including needed educational changes, the importance of belief systems as the objective of Intelligence and Information Operations (I2O), the role of Serious Games/Games for Change, and the considerable work that has been done by Collective Intelligence pioneers, who just held their first convergence conference call on 15 January 2007.
Final note: the author uses NASA and the Columbia disaster, and CIA and the Iraq disaster, as examples, but does not adequately discuss the pathologies of bureaucracy and the politicization of intelligence and space. As a former CIA employee who also reads a great deal, I can assert with confidence that CIA has no trouble aggregating all that it knew, including the reports of the 30 line crossers who went in and then came back to report there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. CIA has two problems: 1) Dick Cheney refused to listen; and 2) George Tenet lacked the integrity to go public and go to Congress to challenge Dick Cheney's malicious and impeachable offenses against America (see my reviews of "VICE" and of "One Percent Doctrine" on Cheney, and my many reviews on the mistakes leading up to and within the Iraq war). See also my reviews of "Fog Facts" and "Lost History" and Gaddis' "The Landscape of History."
To end on an upbeat note, what I see in this book, and "Wikinomics" and "Collective Intelligence" and "Tao of Democracy" and my own "The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political," is a desperate need for Amazon to take on the task of aggregating books and building out from books to create social communities where all these books can be "seen" and "read" and "understood" as a whole. We remain fragmented in the production and dissemination of information, and consequently, in our own mind-sets and world-views. Time to change that, perhaps with Wiki-books that lock-down the original and then give free license to apply OHS linkages at the paragraph level, and unlimited wike build-outs. That's what I am in Seattle to discuss this week.Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge Overview

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Moodle Teaching Techniques: Creative Ways to Use Moodle for Constructing Online Learning Solutions Review

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Moodle Teaching Techniques: Creative Ways to Use Moodle for Constructing Online Learning Solutions ReviewWilliam Rice, in Moodle Teaching Techniques, has created a resource that goes beyond the basic "keystroke and click directions" provided by many introductory manuals. Rice provides a variety of practical suggestions for teachers and trainers and avoids the discussion of technical issues which are often irrelevant to Moodle course creators.
The book begins by introducing the instructional principles he uses as the basis for the ideas and activities shared throughout the book. Those without formal educational training will find these few pages informative and helpful, while those with an instructional design or educational background benefit from a reinforcement of those principles we learned, but sometimes forget when the development begins. For example, Rice discusses the value of forums and collaboration among course participants, an important element in good course design, but one which is lacking in many Moodle courses. I was pleased to see this principle reinforced and think it is helpful for readers to be reminded.
The core of the book consists of chapters dedicated to various Moodle tools and specific applications; all presented with the expectation that the reader is familiar with Moodle basics. As I started reading, I was skeptical that Rice was going to present any unique ideas that I had not seen or thought of before--I've been using Moodle for over four years and have worked with hundreds of schools, companies, and organizations through which I've heard many interesting and unusual ideas for the implementation of Moodle activities. As I read, however, I found some ideas that really made me think again about how I had been doing things. In some cases, there was new information that I didn't realize was useful until after the fact. For instance, there are several pages dedicated to network or IP addresses as they relate to proctoring quizzes. As I read the information, I thought initially that too much space was dedicated to the concept; thinking that most readers would contact their network director or that they would know the information themselves. A few days later though, as I was conducting a training and discussing IP addresses, I realized that the information I picked up made me aware of some nuances surrounding proctored quizzes and activity tracking that I had not considered before.
In addition to the ideas Rice presents for the application of the various modules, one of the biggest strengths of the book is that he includes instructions for "real" teacher tasks. Readers will find one section of the book dedicated to tracking participant activity, which is a skill that many teachers and trainers will utilize. Rice mentions using everything from the activity logs to course reports to see what learners are doing. The book also addresses more obscure, under-used features such as splitting forums, using groups and custom scales. Rice hit the mark here in identifying these more advanced topics as being especially valuable.
The other feature that will benefit readers is that Rice presents the "why" behind his choices. For example, he explains his selection of a forum over a wiki for one activity. In another section, he explains why he would use a wiki instead of an assignment, blog, forum, or journal. In my experience, course creators do not struggle as much with which button to click, but rather more in deciding which tool is best for a specific learning activity. Rice's explanations provide the reader insight to help guide them through those decision-making processes.
While Moodle Teaching Techniques is a valuable resource for Moodle users, there are some caveats that should be mentioned. First, as Moodle 1.9 is released later this month, I recognize that many readers will be looking for information to help them make the transition. Though this book makes mention of being based on 1.9, it is really based on 1.8 functionality. For most of the content, the version is not significant as the information is true for both 1.8 and 1.9 and the book is more about big ideas than buttons. However, there are a few pages that mention groups and the gradebook, both of which have seen large changes in 1.9. The good news is that the suggestions still apply and the functionality exists in both 1.8 and 1.9, but the steps will be a bit different. In the case of the gradebook example, the reader will likely have to spend some time finding their own solution to the suggested implementation.
Aside from the version difference, my only other complaint is that while Rice professed that this book was not going to go step-by-step and was going to make some assumptions about prior knowledge, it seemed a bit inconsistent. In many places the instructions were detailed and very clear; I had no doubts that even a fairly novice Moodle user would be able to follow along. In other places though, I found myself wanting more information. For example, the lesson and the workshop are pretty complex tools and while the information presented was helpful, it could have been more so. While Rice generally follows his premise throughout the book, the lesson and workshop are tools that many people struggle with and readers may have benefited from a bit more detail about them.
Despite these minor complaints, I recommend this book without reservation. Moodle Teaching Techniques is a great companion resource to other more basic Moodle texts and manuals and provides many ideas to help teachers and trainers take their Moodle courses to the next level.Moodle Teaching Techniques: Creative Ways to Use Moodle for Constructing Online Learning Solutions Overview

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The Digital Writing Workshop Review

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The Digital Writing Workshop ReviewThis is the book that every English teacher in America should be reading. Troy Hicks takes the traditional writer's workshop, introduced by well-known educators, such as, Donald Graves and Nancie Atwell, and reinvents it to include the all important digital element.
On page 5, Hicks discusses the purpose of his book, which relates to the obvious changes in technology; he explains how to create a writing workshop that goes beyond paper and pencil to implement a workshop that emphasizes 21st Century skills. Hicks addresses RSS, blogs, wikis, and podcasts, and he provides a companion website to support the book at the Digital Writing Workshop Ning.
I love that Hicks discusses how to introduce NPR's This I Believe series into the classroom. His ideas, thoughts, and rubrics are more than enough reason to buy this book. If your high school is not implementing this writing assignment at some level in your school, I highly suggest that you visit the website and buy Hick's book to discover why it is a keeper.
The most important element that Hicks brings up is on page 104 when he discusses why we are missing the point when we assign digital projects as assignments. Is the font, the colors, or even the number of slides used, make a project relevant? None of this really assesses whether a student can effectively create a worthy digital product. As an English teacher who understands that digital elements and images are connected to words on a deeper level than just using the required number of pictures in the slides, I know this is true, but assessing and creating a rubric is difficult. The Digital Writing Workshop demonstrates not only how to use new technologies, but also provides teachers with charts of effective digital writing. If you have just purchased this book, turn to page 115 to figure 6.2 to see what I mean.
I have used wikis and nings with my students, but this is the first year I have ventured into letting my students support their own personal blog. Hicks created a Blogger's Matrix that includes assessments for teachers to use with student bloggers in the classroom. I plan to incorporate these assessments into my classroom.
I was excited to find a book called The Digital Writing Workshop. The title alone inspired me, and I knew that this would be a book that would be an invaluable resource in my classroom.The Digital Writing Workshop Overview

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Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools Review

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Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools ReviewThis book is a great introduction to thinking about how to use a variety of digital tools for the purposes of teaching writing. The book starts out with a helpful intro. that discusses how the literacy practices of reading and writing are changing via online interaction and then goes into each of these different practices.
What I enjoyed most is how the the book organizes its discussions of digital tools according to the thinking/writing processes they promote. For example, wikis are discussed in a chapter on collaborative writing, while video composition is discussed in a chapter on storytelling. In this sense the book is more than a "how to" manual in that it gets at how these tools can be used to promote writing.
For those who want a book jam-packed with classroom friendly URLs and teaching resources, they will enjoy the companion wiki that goes along with the book. I appreciate how the book explains the ideas while the wiki provides numerous examples to illustrate and support how it can be done in the classroom.
This book will be helpful to those who want to use digital tools to update how they teach writing, or for those already digitally savvy, who want to expand their digital writing repertoire.Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools Overview

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Wikis: Tools for Information Work and Collaboration (Information Professional S.) Review

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Wikis: Tools for Information Work and Collaboration (Information Professional S.) ReviewThis book serves as a good introduction to wikis: their history, their possible uses, their unique characterstics, and how they are used in both corporated and educational environments. It gives lots of examples of both public and corporate wikis. If you are looking to set up a wiki, this can point you to helpful resources, but will not give you specific step-by-step instructions.Wikis: Tools for Information Work and Collaboration (Information Professional S.) Overview

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RSS for Educators: Blogs, Newsfeeds, Podcasts, and Wikis in the Classroom Review

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RSS for Educators: Blogs, Newsfeeds, Podcasts, and Wikis in the Classroom ReviewWhatever happened to Web 1.0? Readers of John Hendron's (2008) book, RSS for Educators, will quickly realize the speed at which web technology has evolved. From its humble Web 1.0 beginnings of one-way, read-only applications on the information highway, we now have two-way, read-write RSS (Really Simple Syndication) apps and tools in a new revolutionary freeway of innovations of computer commuters networked by information using blogs, podcasts, newsfeeds, and wikis. This can be about everything, be from anywhere, happen everywhere, and on all kinds of devices (Wesch, 2008)
For someone who has an older one-way computer background, John Hendron's book is an eye-opener not only for techies, but also especially for educators who must merge into the new-era of Web 2.0 information travels. The new features of this highway are succinctly defined with helpful diagrams picturing Client/Server/Local User paradigms to help us understand where we are located in this interactive information highway called the Internet. For someone who had little background on Web 2.0, this book was very readable with new technologies clearly explained. Much of the author's discussion of blogs, wikis, etc. seamlessly interact with his classroom experience as a teacher and liaison to district administrators and parents, in bringing them together to experience and benefit from the slew of technologies available to help them communicate and better education.
The strength of the book is in its balance of presenting Web 2.0 technologies in a readable but also very technical fashion. Teachers can quickly make progress by using the recommended websites to start blog accounts, wikis, etc. A brief range of the most popular and powerful technologies are presented for the consumer to choose from depending on his/her situation. Whether it is blogs, wikis, podcasts, VoIP, or newsfeeds, the author usually surveys the most effective tools, always giving attention to both platforms, whether it is PC or Macintosh. His only weakness is his unhidden bias for Macs. However, the detail of his interaction with the technology is fair. His treatment of these is up-to-date and current.
In relation to Wikis, John gives helpful examples of using wikis for department meetings, notes, minutes, and even curriculum development. Here is where the "Ah Haa" moments echo where he provides specific uses of wikis from his own educational experience. The technology of Web 2.0 is not confined to the classroom, but transcended by things like videoconferencing, and also usable in teacher business as well as district business. The two-way roads of technology are expanding to the many facets of education.
When it comes to blogging, the author adequately surveys the popular blog resources available to begin web 2.0 applications. Again, both PC and Macintosh platforms are represented. The section does seem overly technical for educators, but as an educator with computer background, I found it very helpful. What I appreciate about Hendron's treatment is the balance of adequate technical help with the creativity of the Web 2.0 applications. Especially eye-opening were the classroom lesson plans using blogging technology to accomplish educational objectives. What administrator would not drop his/her jaw to see this kind of technology used in the classroom to engage and bring much needed collaboration to the classroom using technology? The lessons were replete with collaborative ideas using engaging technology. The only criticism is that the lesson plans did not include a single math lesson. This reviewer is a secondary math teacher.
In the final analysis, the esoteric technical title of the book is actually a rich and readable ride into the revolutionary Web 2.0 technology of not the future, but the present. It's explained clearly across both platforms and surveyed across the most popular tools. This is an excellent primer on information travel for Web 2.0.
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Blogs, Wikis, MySpace, and More: Everything You Want to Know About Using Web 2.0 but Are Afraid to Ask Review

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Blogs, Wikis, MySpace, and More: Everything You Want to Know About Using Web 2.0 but Are Afraid to Ask ReviewThis book is a handy guide to Web 2.0. Burrows explains what exactly is Web 2.0 and how to make the most of it. He describes earlier websites as static and Web 2.0 as interactive. In each chapter, Burrows addresses some new interactive, exciting way the Web in now being used. For example, Burrows has a chapter about blogging. He explains what blogging is, the evolution of blogging, how to start a blog and websites where you can actually get started. He uses the same approach in chapters about creating podcasts, sharing videos, social networking and more.Blogs, Wikis, MySpace, and More: Everything You Want to Know About Using Web 2.0 but Are Afraid to Ask Overview

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Wikipedia: The Missing Manual Review

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Wikipedia: The Missing Manual ReviewWikipedia, the free access online encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute, is a remarkable achievement. Started only in 2001, it now comprises over 9 million articles is written in over 250 languages, and is the first choice for reference material for millions of Internet users. Despite criticisms by some for the variable quality of its material, the value of the contributions of tens of thousands of unpaid volunteers is enormous, not only in notable and verified content accessible to the vast majority of the world's population in their native languages, but in the opportunity for everyone to contribute to this repository of knowledge in his or her own way (subject to the review and editing of others just like themselves.)
More importantly, in my view, is the model it represents in human collaboration efforts, this one in creating a repository of knowledge, but applicable more broadly to other efforts. Besides merely creating enormously useful things, the collaborative efforts result in a community of people and groups which has its own intrinsic values. Imagine thousands of volunteers committing their personal time and effort into a nonhierarchical, consensus-based collaboration having as its selfless main purpose the improvement of human society. Socialism at its best! It seems to me that the model may be useful in areas of politics, management and administration, education, and other social endeavors.. The Open-Source software movement, predating Wikipedia, operates in much the same way. Perhaps the earliest example of this collaborative model was the developmental years of the Internet.
As a casual user of Wikipedia, I had no idea of the nature of the Wikipedia project (and its sister projects - Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, and Wikiversity - and no doubt others yet to come) until I read "Wikipedia: the Missing Manual," by John Broughton. He is an experienced Wikipedia editor with over 15,000 edits to his credit and is the creator of the "Editor's Index to Wikipedia" which lists every reference page on Wikipedia as well as other off site pages with information useful for serious Wikipedia editors. "Wikipedia: the Missing Manual" is an extremely thorough guide to creating and editing Wikipedia articles. The book is intended to help train new writers and editors and to improve the skills and knowledge of existing participants.
Broughton encourages people to join the Wikipedia community of researchers, fact checkers, and proofreaders. This community seems to be made up of committed, skilled, and serious people who take great pride in the project. There is little organizational hierarchy involved and a minimum of formal participatory rules, but a large set of informal mores and practices which help maintain production, efficiency, civility, and quality. There is always a need for more articles, although of the thousands created every day, nearly one half of them are deleted within 24 hours by attentive editors for a number of reasons explained in the book.
The book starts with an introduction to the basic principles of the Wikipedia project involving notability, credibility, balance, consensus, and good faith and moves quickly into the process of registering with Wikipedia, setting up a user account, and starting out practicing writing, previewing, and saving edits.
In six parts and 21 chapters, the book covers how to document sources, set up an editor's account, and personal workspaces, create new articles, use page histories, monitor changes, and dealing with vandalism and spam. It explains the value of collaborating with other editors and participants in creating and editing articles and in special Wiki Projects and other group efforts. There are several chapters describing how to deal with the inevitable conflict between editors and explains the Wikipedia editing mores of civility, ethics, legality (mostly copyright issues), and efficiency. He explains why editors disagree, in what ways, and how they resolve disputes. He also provides guidance on how disputes can be avoided in the first place.
Separate chapters of the book detail how to work with article pages and sections, tables, lists, markups and links, images and media, and categories. There are descriptions of what makes a good article and what doesn't and there are step-by-step tutorials on creating better articles and being systematic about good editing practices. A most interesting feature of Wikipedia is its large collection of free-to-use images, videos, sound clips, and other media in the Wikipedia Media Commons area which is available for article use and for non-Wikipedia use by anyone for any purpose.
Advanced topics include customizing your user account via preferences and skins and using JavaScript and templates to facilitate efficiency. There is a short 20 page appendix for those people content with being mere users of Wikipedia and learning how to get the most out of it. More involved users will benefit from Appendix C which itemizes the huge amount of Wikipedia help, reference, coaching, and other educational sources especially valuable for those determined to become better editors or higher-level participants like administrators of Wikipedia.
The presentation is thorough and articulate. It covers basic and advanced editing skills. Broughton frequently notes keyword search items and tips to be more productive and efficient. The community norms demand attentive and educated participants. Experience with coding is appreciated. The book has plenty of screenshots illustrating the discussions of Wikipedia features. Most of the sections contain Notes and Tips which provide more detailed explanations of features and an experienced editor's perspective to the prospective new editor as to how and why to do things. Broughton is (perhaps unintentionally) inspiring about participating in the Wikipedia editor community.
Although the book deserves great credit for its content and its tone a few problems with the layout and design detract a bit. The layout is dense with graphics a bit too tightly packed in with the text. Captions at the bottom of grayscale illustrations occasionally refer to nonexistent color clues resulting in some confusion. The density seems to reflect the nature of Wikipedia editing itself, which can be very involved. But, rewarding.Wikipedia: The Missing Manual Overview

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Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms Review

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Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms ReviewIf you are looking to add technology into your classroom, Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, is a good place to start. The book takes the reader through a journey of possibilities to using web 2.0 tools in education. Each chapter was dedicated to a web 2.0 tool, from Weblogs to Social Networks (and many in-between)! Each chapter describes the web 2.0 tool and then gives examples of how others have used the tool in their classroom. On top of that Richardson also has examples you can actually go to on the Internet! I found that the real life examples reinforced the idea that teachers all over the world are incorporating technology into their classrooms. And it was nice to see how others were doing that.
I like how Richardson wrote the book for educators and he understands that not everyone is an expert at using technology. He constantly is mentioning that before jumping into using this in the classroom, you must first become involved yourself in the technology. Which is so true; you must first understand how to use technology and what this all means in the education world before expecting your students to. He provides guidelines and steps of how to incorporate web 2.0 tools into your classroom.
From this book I have built upon what I already know about web 2.0 tools and learned some new things. In fact while reading this book, a colleague of mine should be how to use Jing and Screencast to record and share a video from my computer. When I went home to read the next chapter of Will's book I learned even more about Jing and Screencast and how other teachers were using it. There was however one chapter that was completely new to me which was chapter five RSS. Like the other chapters in this book, Will starts off by explaining what RSS is and then gives suggestions of how to get involved with RSS. I have not had a chance to try setting up an RSS feed for myself, however it is something that I will be doing in the near future.
I do not consider myself an expert on technology, however I do feel comfortable using it, and believe one hundred percent that my students need to be taught how to use the technology we have available to their advantage. As Richardson points out in his book, we need to prepare our students for their future, they need to learn to read, write, and collaborate using the web. The web is a place that Richardson defines as a Read/Reflect/Write/Participate Web. Another point Richardson makes is that students are using these tools at home and they may not be using them properly. If taught in the classroom how to read, write, and collaborate with others properly, students are going to be successful in the future. Teachers do not need to become experts but they should have a general idea of the tools out there and how to use them in the classroom to benefit students.
This book is a great resource to build upon what you are already doing in the classroom or for teachers who are just starting to incorporate technology. I hope that you read this book and find at least one web 2.0 tool that you find so incredible that you want to try and then you will bring to your classroom and use with your students.Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms Overview

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Wikipatterns Review

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Wikipatterns ReviewWikis are one of those "Web 2.0" applications that seem to be right on the edge of jumping into mainstream adoption. If your workplace is anything like mine, you've been spending more time lately answering the "what's a wiki" question than you have in the past. If you're starting to approach the point where you're ready to try one out in your organization, here's a good place to start your planning... WikiPatterns - A Practical Guide To Improving Productivity and Collaboration In Your Organization by Stewart Mader. Rather than a "do this, this, and this" instruction manual, Mader gets into the whys and whats of wiki adoption in the workplace, complete with case studies and real-life examples.
Table of Contents:
1. Grassroots is Best
Case Study: LeapFrog
2. Your Wiki Isn't (Necessarily) Wikipedia
Case Study: Johns Hopkins University
3. What's Five Minutes Really Worth?
Case Study: Sun Microsystems
4. 11 Steps to a Successful Wiki Pilot
Case Study: Red Ant
Case Study: A Conversation with a WikiChampion: Jude Higdon
5. Drive Large-Scale Adoption
Case Study: JavaPolis
Case Study: A Conversation with a WikiChampion: Jeff Calado
6. Prevent (or Minimize) Obstacles
Case Study: Kerrydale Street
7. Inspirational Bull****
Case Study: Constitution Day
Case Study: Peter Higgs: Using a Wiki in Research
Appendix - Questions and Answers
Index
Stewart Mader is the Wiki Evangelist for Atlassian Software, who also happens to be the creator of Confluence, an enterprise Wiki software package. But don't let that little bit of disclosure put you off. He is a well-known personality in the wiki community, and he's done the evangelism gig with many a company and organization prior to joining Atlassian. As such, the material is pretty vendor-neutral in terms of what you should and shouldn't be doing. You don't have to worry about sitting through a long sales pitch.
The book is designed to be used in conjunction with the website [...]. That site lists and explores a number of "patterns" and "anti-patterns" that come into play when launching and running a wiki site. Furthermore, it's split up into people and adoption issues. So as you're reading through the book, you'll see references (especially in the case studies) to patterns and anti-patterns that influenced the successes and difficulties of many of the projects. As the wikipatterns concepts are still evolving, the case studies didn't necessarily set out to follow and implement a certain set of behaviors. Quite often, the patterns are seen only in hindsight. But you have the benefit of being able to observe the patterns at work before you get started on your own project. This should help increase your odds of success at the start, or at least give you a clue as to what might be going wrong before it gets too messy to correct.
I personally am at the point where this information is *exactly* what I need at work. We've got a number of people who are ready to start a wiki pilot project, and the only reason I've put it off is due to some other higher-priority projects. But armed with Mader's wisdom, I think I'll have a much better chance of pulling off a successful pilot. I also saw some great ideas for taking the DominoWiki OpenNTF project and extending it (like with page templates) to make the software even more useful and easy to implement.
If you simply want to roll out a wiki for your own use, you'll probably see most of this information as overkill. But if you want to help lead the way to wiki adoption at your company, you could consider this the "teacher's guide" edition of the textbook. Not only will it ground you in the cultural aspects of wiki adoption, but it will establish you as the "go-to" person when it comes to this particular branch of the collaboration software tree.Wikipatterns Overview

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Mediawiki (Wikipedia and Beyond) Review

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Mediawiki (Wikipedia and Beyond) ReviewThis book is for anyone who wants to read wikis, add material to a wiki, or install and run their own MediaWiki site. Each type of user is granted their own section in this book. Part 1 of this book is dedicated to wiki readers, explaining how to navigate a MediaWiki site effectively. Part 2 is for authors, and discusses how to write and edit wiki articles, beginning with the basics and moving to more complex tasks. Part 3 is for administrators and programmers. It covers how to install and maintain a MediaWiki site, how to configure its many settings, and how to program its own features, called MediaWiki extensions. It's a pretty easy and well-organized read in the O'Reilly tradition of technical books. However, if you plan to write extensions, you'll need to know, at minimum, the PHP programming language. This book assumes you already know it. For anything complicated, you'll also need to become familiar with MediaWiki's PHP code - particularly its classes, constants, and global variables - and its database schema. The following is the table of contents, not yet available as part of the product information:
Part 1: Getting Started
Chapter 1. A First Look
Section 1.1. What's MediaWiki?
Section 1.2. A Typical Day on a MediaWiki Site
Section 1.3. When to Use MediaWiki
Section 1.4. When Not to Use MediaWiki
Section 1.5. Additional Resources
Chapter 2. Basic Use
Section 2.1. Quick Tour of a Wiki Page
Section 2.2. Articles
Section 2.3. Editing Primer
Section 2.4. Menu Reference
Section 2.5. Getting Help
Chapter 3. Your User Identity
Section 3.1. Creating an Account
Section 3.2. Logging In and Out
Section 3.3. User Pages
Section 3.4. Signatures
Section 3.5. Watchlists
Section 3.6. Tracking Your Contributions
Section 3.7. Preferences
Section 3.8. User CSS and JavaScript
Part 2: Writing and Editing Articles
Chapter 4. Editing Articles
Section 4.1. Getting Started with Editing
Section 4.2. Creating an Article
Section 4.3. Paragraphs and Headings
Section 4.4. Typestyles and Fonts
Section 4.5. Links
Section 4.6. Images and Uploaded Files
Section 4.7. Lists
Section 4.8. Tables
Section 4.9. Mathematical Formulas
Section 4.10. Escaping Wikitext with nowiki
Section 4.11. Conflicts
Section 4.12. Beyond the Basics
Chapter 5. Links
Section 5.1. Internal Links
Section 5.2. External Links
Section 5.3. Interwiki Links
Section 5.4. Interlanguage Links
Section 5.5. Graphical Links
Section 5.6. File Links
Section 5.7. Linking Tips
Chapter 6. Organizing Articles
Section 6.1. Categories
Section 6.2. Namespaces
Section 6.3. Subpages
Section 6.4. Redirects
Section 6.5. Disambiguation Pages
Section 6.6. Renaming Articles
Section 6.7. Deleting Articles
Chapter 7. Advanced Article Construction
Section 7.1. Maintaining a Consistent Wiki
Section 7.2. Variables
Section 7.3. Templates and Transclusion
Section 7.4. Logical Parser Functions
Section 7.5. Dynamic Page List
Section 7.6. Recipes for Refactoring
Chapter 8. Special Pages
Section 8.1. Maintenance Reports
Section 8.2. List of Pages
Section 8.3. Login/Sign Up
Section 8.4. Users and Rights
Section 8.5. Recent Changes and Logs
Section 8.6. Media Reports and Uploads
Section 8.7. Wiki Data and Tools
Section 8.8. Redirects and Random Pages
Section 8.9. High-Use Pages
Section 8.10. Page Tools
Section 8.11. Other Special Pages
Section 8.12. Special Pages Grouped by Task
Part 3: Running and Administering MediaWiki
Chapter 9. Installing MediaWiki
Section 9.1. Before You Begin
Section 9.2. Installing the Prerequisites
Section 9.3. Installing MediaWiki
Section 9.4. Important Optional Features
Section 9.5. A Tour of MediaWiki's Files
Section 9.6. Maintaining the Code
Chapter 10. Practical Wiki Design
Section 10.1. Adopting MediaWiki
Section 10.2. Planning
Section 10.3. Establishing Standards
Section 10.4. Governance
Section 10.5. Integrating with Other Websites
Chapter 11. Configuring MediaWiki: An Overview
Section 11.1. Administrative Roles
Section 11.2. Advanced Page Constructs
Section 11.3. Special Pages for Sysops and Bureaucrats
Section 11.4. System Messages
Section 11.5. Cascading Stylesheets
Section 11.6. JavaScript
Section 11.7. Configuration Settings
Section 11.8. Extensions
Section 11.9. Skinning
Section 11.10. SQL Programming
Section 11.11. Maintenance Scripts
Chapter 12. Controlling Wiki Features
Section 12.1. Users
Section 12.2. User Rights and Permissions
Section 12.3. Article Content
Section 12.4. Configuring the Editing of Articles
Section 12.5. Maintaining Articles
Section 12.6. Configuring Namespaces
Section 12.7. File Uploads
Section 12.8. Search
Section 12.9. Special Page List
Section 12.10. Database Configuration
Section 12.11. Email Configuration
Section 12.12. JavaScript Configuration
Section 12.13. Logging and Debugging
Chapter 13. Changing Appearances
Section 13.1. The Basics
Section 13.2. Menus
Section 13.3. Search Box
Section 13.4. Tables of Contents
Section 13.5. External Link Appearance
Section 13.6. Page Credits
Section 13.7. Overall Look and Feel
Section 13.8. International Support
Chapter 14. Installing Extensions
Section 14.1. Obtaining Extensions
Section 14.2. Installing an Extension
Section 14.3. Recommended Extensions
Chapter 15. Creating Extensions
Section 15.1. Overview of Extension Types
Section 15.2. Creating a Variable
Section 15.3. Creating a Parser Function
Section 15.4. Creating a Tag Extension
Section 15.5. Behavior Changes
Section 15.6. Creating a Special Page
Section 15.7. Useful Tasks for Extension Writers
Section 15.8. Creating a Skin
Section 15.9. Publishing an Extension
Section 15.10. Other Extension Topics
Section 15.11. Finding a MediaWiki Programmer
Chapter 16. Wiki Administration
Section 16.1. Maintenance Scripts
Section 16.2. Backups
Section 16.3. Upgrades
Section 16.4. Read-Only Wiki
Section 16.5. Performance and Scaling
Section 16.6. Security
Section 16.7. Vandalism
Section 16.8. Common Maintenance Tasks
Section 16.9. For More InformationMediawiki (Wikipedia and Beyond) Overview

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Professional Wikis (Programmer to Programmer) Review

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Professional Wikis (Programmer to Programmer) ReviewThis is one of the best technical guides I have encountered and I have used hundreds of them. I am not a programer, but I work with open source software regularly and I am comfortable hacking code.
I have administered simple MediaWiki sites successfully, but this book has shown me how to make major improvements with my existing sites, and will serve as a guide in the creation of many planned wikis. This book has also extended my understanding of php.
The author, not only clearly outlines how to work with MediaWiki software, but concisely and intelligently discusses the merits of options in configuring and working with the software.
Even if you are not currently administering a MediaWiki site, his discussion of formating wiki text is excellent for those seeking more than the basics.Professional Wikis (Programmer to Programmer) Overview

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Wikis For Dummies Review

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Wikis For Dummies ReviewThis provides a solid overview of the history, general functions, and common uses of Wikis, and for that I am glad that I read it. One thing that I didn't consider until after I bought it -- and was using a few wikis already -- was that a great deal of the information was engine-specific. PBWiki was a common example throughout the book, but I don't use PBWiki, and I don't like the interface (I guess I got used to Wikispaces, which works perfectly for me). So although there was a great deal of good information about what I can do with a wiki, so much of the how wasn't useful to me, since I'll have to go learn the particulars of my engine of choice, rather than the ones in the book.Wikis For Dummies Overview

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The Complete Guide to Wikis: How to Set Up, Use, and Benefit from Wikis for Teachers, Business Professionals, Families, and Friends Review

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The Complete Guide to Wikis: How to Set Up, Use, and Benefit from Wikis for Teachers, Business Professionals, Families, and Friends ReviewOther than having heard of the ubiquitous online encyclopedia, "Wikipedia", many people may not know that a wiki- a web site that allows visitors to make changes, contributions, or corrections- is a powerful tool that is radically changing the social, educational and business climate. Brian Chatfield's Complete Guide to WIKIS is a no-nonsense, clearly written handbook to understanding what the increasing use of wikis means in terms of how information is gathered and recorded, and how to harness and utilize that power for education, business, and personal growth.
Chatfield writes intelligently, but avoids the technical jargon that can confuse what are straightforward concepts. Chapters include case studies taken from successful, well-known wikis, (Wikipedia, Baseball Reference Bullpen, Ganfyd, Project Backpack, Sourcewatch, Curriki) providing wiki novices with an introduction to wiki types, history and applications, their proliferation, and concise instruction on how first to edit and then create project-specific wikis. For those already familiar or expert with wikis, this guide expands on hosting, security, automation, tips for tweaking and tailoring wikis, comparing wikis with content management software, as well as predictions about the creative applications of wikis on the horizon.
As Chatfield notes in his guide, wikis are not just technical devices, they are also the engines driving our future organization and filtering of information. As living, collaborative documents, wikis are increasingly becoming the new model for our collective knowledge. This guide provides both the specific technical instruction necessary to create and develop wikis, as well as an awareness of how to interpret that information in light of a fair understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of wiki technology.The Complete Guide to Wikis: How to Set Up, Use, and Benefit from Wikis for Teachers, Business Professionals, Families, and Friends Overview

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