Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Method #10 This Wiki World


So many good wikis, and so little time. That's the biggest drawback to me for using all these collaborative Web sites. It's nice to see that some are attempting to link the good ones. Once I start clicking, it's easy to get so far in it's like a virtual maze, but I can always add them to my Delicious account and organize them to be able to find them again.

I was taught to consider Wikipedia okay for casual information seeking, but it was a major no-no as a research source because it was a collaborative online encyclopedia. I asked my nephew Kyle in college last year what he thought of Wikipedia and did he use it for school work. He told me that he uses it as a source for sources. When he pulls up an article, he looks at the information and then scrolls down to see the Reference List or Bibliography for that listing and has found some good authoritative sources that way. I thought that was a great idea, so I've passed that tip on to teachers and students.

Never before in the history of mankind have we had to deal with the magnitude of information as we do now. We have to wade through so much, and often keep re-inventing the wheel again and again when we could save so much time collaborating with others and their successful in best library practices. Huge, huge help for us in the information industry. Wikis play a big role in that; just have to make the time to investigate and use them.

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