Posts Tagged ‘wiki’

Teaching online skills

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

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John Cucka

What an encyclopedia might look like

What is it: MS announced that this is the last year they will be offering Encarta, their PC Encyclopedia software.

Why is it cool: The product arc of Encarta is a fascinating example of a transitional product: in this case living firmly between the DeadTree Encyclopediae (eg Britannica) and the Web’opedia (eg Wiki, or even just the whole web). Aside from this, the author points out that Encarta has mid-wifed schools out of needing to teach kids proper online research skills. How will schools rise to the emerging challenge? How long will they take?

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: John Cucka

Wiki, wiki everywhere…

Monday, August 25th, 2008

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Phil Booth

What a wookie

What is it: The success of the community-owned and -created Wikipedia has led to multiple niche-specific wikis.

Why is it cool: A great example of how the web is empowering disparate people with shared interests to come together voluntarily, socialistically, to collect, organise and share their knowledge, without reliance on traditional media producers.

And how could we miss the opportunity to share the name of the Star Wars wiki: the Wookieepedia!

Where to find it: Example of niche wikis here and here, hub of wikis here!

Submitted by: Phil Booth

Encyclopedia of life

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

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John Cucka

Bio-diversity

What is it: This blog outlines the efforts of a small group who came up with the idea to build an Encyclopedia of Life. They point out that if we were to stumble upon a planet with life, one of the first things we would do is catalogue it all – yet we haven’t done this with our own planet – anywhere from 70-99% of all species on Earth are unknown. The article goes on to talk about the use of wiki technology to build a web page for every species.

“Expert” taxonomists have long held that amateurs cannot possibly contribute to such an effort (ie identifying new species), but at www.eol.org they accept that passionate amateurs can contribute significant information, which can be reviewed at a distance by the experts – rather than the experts needing to phyiscally travel to the organisms (or vice versa).

Further, the article goes on to envision a (more…)