Have wikis had their day?

It looks like wikis are not worth shouting about any more. PBwiki (so called because it makes setting up a wiki easier than making a peanut butter sandwich) is changing its name to better project the uses of its product: it offers a cross between a content management system, VLE and, erm, wiki. I have always thought that pbwiki didn't look or feel like a wiki, so the name change makes sense.

One of the other free wiki providers: wetpaint went down this route some time ago. In fact, even the page titled 'Create your own wetpaint wiki' contains no reference whatever to wikis!


Maybe when collaborating online is so easy with Google docs, Ning et al, wikis just aren't sexy any more.

This is probably a good thing, wikimania led people to try and shoe-horn all kind of activities onto a wiki regardless of whether it was an appropriate tool, whether students liked it and whether it served any purpose other than keeping up with the virtual Joneses.

Perhaps now wikis can rest easy in the online instructors toolbox along with email, discussion boards and powerpoint. It seems that there's no commercial angle to wikis any more.

In the meantime, all aboard Twitter!

Comments

  1. Just found your blog and already really interesting posts. Personally I find it hard to see why a wiki is better than google documents- it's just more difficult. You can put things in the wrong place and then not be able to delete.

    Somebody showed us the @mwesch 'Vision of Students' vid yesterday and I noticed that he too used a google doc for the collaboration involved.

    Thanks
    AM

    ReplyDelete

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