Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia at Wikimania 2006

As a sort of follow-up or maybe as an overview or background info for Denise's post below about wikis, I thought I'd share this with you. Jimmy Wales is one of the founders of Wikipedia and he gave an extremely interesting talk at the Wikimania Conference last summer. Here's the podcast of Jimmy Wales' talk at the Wikimania conference. It's about 30 megs, so it may take a while to download depending on your connection.

Listen to the podcast and post some thoughts or questions here.

Wiki's

I have just completed a Wiki course with Lori Burch. I have started one for Village Elementary and would like to see as many grade levels use and edit it for information. What is a Wiki you ask? A wiki is an easy to use web page that muliple people can edit. For example. When doing research on the Arctic or the Rainforest for example, students will be able to "post" their information so that other students might be able to use that information. It's kind of like an encyclopedia. Sometimes it is hard to find information on the internet that is age appropriate. If we could get this started, it might be a place for future students to go to do some of their research or if the information is outdated to edit this information. I'd like to get your thoughts about this and, also, I need your help as far as getting you and your students involved with this. Tell me what you think. VillageWiki check out the Wiki Link. I have actually put some information on for you to see. If you go to the wiki, go to the Arctic Page then to 3rd grade Arctic. From there the pictures are links to the students research. They did an awesome job.