Welcome to the ISABC wiki
This is a place to play with wikis. You'll find here some resources on wikis and a couple of so-called sandboxes, places to experiment freely and get help with the technology.
Please note this is a companion site to the ISABC Summer Institute with Alan November ning, and you should start there to keep up-to-date with events and information.
On this page:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
Want to join?
Anyone can read the pages here, but you need to be a member of this parrticular wiki to edit them.
Already a member?
If you are already a member, click "Log in" at the top right.
Not yet a member?
If you are new to this wiki, you need to request "access to this workspace" by clicking on the "Edit" tab above and following instructions from there.
New to Wikis?
The guidelines here will help new work a wiki. They also work well for students--feel free to copy, modify and paste them into your own wikis
What is a wiki?
A wiki, a term that comes from the Hawaiin word for "fast", is an easily editable website. It allows two or more people to work together easily to create and share content from any computer that has an internet connection. A wiki automatically keeps a history of all revisions to any document, so partners can easily easily review and restore any changes or deletions. Teachers can also use this revision history to track the contributions of each student. Finally, each wiki page has a discussion board or comments section where users can give feedback and plan future work.
Getting around in here.
You will see a list of links to pages available to you in the Sidebar at the right. Click on these to open up to more pages in the various subject areas.
Working the wiki.
Generally, you will do two things on a wiki:
Make a significant contribution. A significant contribution is a new content addition to any wiki page. To qualify as a significant contribution, your entry should be at least 4-5 sentences long, include accurate information and reflect a deep level of understanding about the topic that you are writing about.
A good contribution addresses addresses the following questions: Is it related to current content? Is it accurate? Does it include an extensive amount of detailing? Is the language accurate enough to be understood easily?
Make a constructive modification. A constructive modification is an edit someone else’s work—not your own. You might correct a significant error or several small errors. Maybe you want to reorganize a page or the navigation from the home page. Maybe you want to edit someone else's entry, not for content, but for the way it's written such as by adding some meaningful details, interesting language or graphics. The main idea here is to move this section of the wiki forward in some constructive way.
Good modifications address the following questions: Were the modifications done correctly? Did the corrected information need correction? Did the modifications clarify language that was confusing? Did the modifications make the language more interesting to read or more fluent? Did the modifications add to the piece in a meaningful way? Is the entry noticeably improved after the modifications?
What makes good wiki?
Trust. It's true that anyone can edit anything in any way he or she feels in this wiki. This is both the power and the risk of using wikis: Many minds can make short work of a problem; or they can make a hash of it. Everyone must act with respect for their colleagues and for the project and must trust that everyone else will do the same.
Patience. Building knowledge collaboratively takes time and patience. The point of working in a wiki is not to find an answer--you can often look that sort of thing up, or ask someone directly; the point is to come to a better understanding the matter at hand and that can take a lot of back-and-forth. A wiki can work something like a conversation, but one extended over time and space, where a group of people work together to make sure everyone in the group understands equally well.
Integrity. The wiki is a collaborativeproject and that means we ought to hold everyone--especially oursleves--the the same standards of argument, respect and good spirits.
Courage. Wikis are public documents, shared with many others, and it takes courage to speak honestly and openly on them. Sometimes we will have to stand our ground when many others are trying to push us off our position. Our ideas and comments will be open to critique and we need to be able to face that fairly and with a spirit of good sportsmanship.
Empathy. A wiki can generate many different, sometimes conflicting, ideas and opinions. Even if we do not agree with them, we must try to reconstruct accurately the arguments and reasons for opposing views. This is not to say all views are right. But, in imaginatively putting ourselves in soemone else's shoes and looking at our arguments from their point of view, we can gain new insight and understanding of ourselves and our own ideas and beliefs.
Perseverance. Sometimes understanding comes easily; but when it does't, we have to struggle through a lot of hard work.
Faith in Reason. Not all discussions on a wiki will be contentious; sometimes--often, we hope--they will be just telling good stories. But when issues do clash, a wiki tries to give the freest play possible to reason as the tool to resolve them.
Fairmindedness. All ideas presented in a wiki ought to be treated equally, that is without reference to our own biases or vested interests.
Want to play around?
We've set up two "sandboxes" or places to play with the wiki tools. They is no difference between the two; we just thought we'd give people lots of room to play. Feel free to experiment in these pages with formatting text, creating new pages, commenting, adding internal and external links, uploading images and embedding videos and playing with plugins. When you're comfortable with those things you can try adding to the main wiki pages. Just remember that nothing in the sandboxes is permanent. Anyone may come in and make changes at anytime.
Calvin's Sandbox
Hobbes' Sandbox
Old Hat?
In the spirit of collaboration, the pages on this wiki are wide open--anyone can come in anytime and add, delete or otherwise modify content. It's hard to break a wiki, but it can be done, so please be careful and respectful.
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