This blog post is merely my reflection on using a wiki as the medium for writing a collaborative literature review on electronic books (ebooks). For this wiki, I used a service called Wikispaces at http://www.wikispaces.com/. I find that Wikispaces is actually very user-friendly with its simple core design and core functionality. With little training, I was able to sign up, sign in, and accessa new wiki site. Starting a new page was easy with the (appropriately termed) “New Page” icon. Anyone with basic experience using Microsoft Word or any other word-processing software should find most of Wikispaces editing features familiar.
As a collaborative tool, I have found that sharing a wiki with a colleague can be simple as well. As long as both of you (or however many individuals you have in your group) have been granted access by the administrator (whomever started the wiki site), then you can both begin sharing
your work. I thought it was easy for each of my group members to take their digital notes and research articles and start populating the shared page. We could proofread and edit each other’s work and gather our thoughts. While this is not as synchronous as a resource such as Google documents, Wikispaces, and wikis in general, make it easy to collaborate and publish a Web page with little effort.
What do you think about using wikis for collaboration? Do you prefer a different tool?
Oh, and wikispaces offers free access. I would not want to miss mentioning that! :)
As a collaborative tool, I have found that sharing a wiki with a colleague can be simple as well. As long as both of you (or however many individuals you have in your group) have been granted access by the administrator (whomever started the wiki site), then you can both begin sharing
your work. I thought it was easy for each of my group members to take their digital notes and research articles and start populating the shared page. We could proofread and edit each other’s work and gather our thoughts. While this is not as synchronous as a resource such as Google documents, Wikispaces, and wikis in general, make it easy to collaborate and publish a Web page with little effort.
What do you think about using wikis for collaboration? Do you prefer a different tool?
Oh, and wikispaces offers free access. I would not want to miss mentioning that! :)
Michael, I will have to check out wikispaces. It sounds user friendly and easy to use. I like that it is simple to share with a colleague. Did you find wikispace as an effective alternative to Google Docs as a collaborative tool? I am fond of Google Docs but I am open to trying new tools. The last time I used Google Docs, I experienced a significant amount of lag time and it was really difficult to type into the document while my group partner was typing as well. That is a downside to Google Docs, I think wikispace as you mentioned is a simple and efficient means to get a project done. I enjoyed your post.
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