What is a Wiki:

"A wiki is a collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it." - Wikipedia

"A wiki is a website where users can add, remove, and edit every page using a web browser." - O'Reilly Network

Two ways to wiki:

1) Install and configure wiki content management software on a server.

2) Use the wiki content management software on one of the many free / fee servers.

Why wiki? Use a wiki to create a website, a project planning site, to write collaboratively, for an intranet and much more... See Uses of a wiki - list of 38 and growing

Let's take a look:

Wikipedia wiki encyclopedia

Katrina Help wiki with up to date requests for help and assistance

Rome Area Chamber of Commerce Web 2.0 Planning Wiki a wiki used by members of the Rome Chamber of Commerce, Mid-York and Jervis Public Library to plan their 10 part Web 2.0 workshop series.

Rome Area Chamber of Commerce Web 2.0 Training Wiki a wiki used by staff of the Mid-York Library System and the Jervis Public Library to teach the Web 2.0 Series to the members of the Rome Area Chamber of Commerce.

Choral Public Domain Library free sheet music wiki

Book Lust A community of people who love books, with Nancy Pearl

State Laws on the Confidentiality of Library Records - plain but useful

Regional Read 2007 Program Planning - a great site with lots of contributors!

How To step by step and demonstrations:

In the workshop, watch Diane, Beverly or Nancy create a wiki.

Read How to Create Your Own PBwiki in 5 minutes [pdf]

Create your own wiki (you may find the following useful worksheetw.txt and screenshots [pdf] )

First, make a list of a few possibilities for a wiki name- keep it short, easy to remember and no spaces!
Go to http://pbwiki.com.
Select the Create a wiki button.
Create an account by filling in your name, email, a password that you choose, and then at the same time create your wiki by filling in the wiki name and indicating whether it is for an individual, for education or for business.
Select the Create my wiki button. Then PBwiki will send you a confirmation email.
Login to the email account you provided and open the email. Click on the activation link.
You will be asked whether you'd like a public or private wiki. Unless it is to be used for private intranet information, make it public. A password will still be required to edit the wiki.
Log out of your email.
Log into your wiki by typing the wiki address. For example, if the wiki name is mysample1 then your url is http://mysample1.pbwiki.com
To log in and edit, select the Log in link at the top right corner, enter the wiki password, your name and email and then select the login button.
Start editing...
Be sure to write down the wiki password!

Good principles and practices:

Use the sidebar to create navigation links to all your pages .

Homework:

Add at least one page to your wiki in addition to the front page.
Add a posting to your blog with a link to the wiki.
Invite a colleague to become a user to be able to edit or write for the wiki.

Choosing a wiki:

Comparison of wiki farms - Wikipdia, the free encyclopedia: A "wiki farm" is a server or a collection of servers that provides wiki hosting, or a group of wikis hosted on such servers. Which Wiki is Right for You? from School Library Journal. The article discusses the following: www.pbwiki.com, www.wikispaces.com, www.wetpaint.com

WikiMatrix - Compare them all. An EXTENSIVE list of wikis, with a Wiki Choice Wizard and comparison feature, forum to talk about wikis and Documentation wiki.

Some wiki farms for free hosted WYSIWYG wikis:

atwiki.com

www.centraldesktop.com

www.jotspot.com [Taken over by Google]

www.myfreewiki.net

More about Wikis:

Wikis: A Beginner's Look

http://meredith.wolfwater.com/cil06/

Learning 2.0 - Main: #16 So what's in a wiki? from 23 things...

http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/2006/09/16-so-whats-in-wiki.html

Week 3: Wikis | Five Weeks to s Social Library

http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/week3

So You Want to Build a Wiki? from Webjunction

http://www.webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent;jsessionid=F5DFEB43242541817C84ED4899F24F6E?id=11262

Using Wikis to Create Online Communities

http://www.webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent;jsessionid=F5DFEB43242541817C84ED4899F24F6E?id=11264

Tips:

PBwiki allows only one person at a time to edit. If someone is editing the page, the following message appears: "Sorry, but Avid B Reader (areader(at)whatever.net) is currently editing this page and has been for 2 minutes. An exclusive edit lock is on this page and until 5 minutes is up, at which point you'll be able to steal the edit lock. For now, just hang tight and wait fo rthem to finish editing or the lock to become stealable." The lock is stealable after 5 minutes because the system figures the first person just shut down their browser instead of logging out, it's a timeout of the edit lock.

It may be possible to upload files: doc, pdf, txt, etc. and link to them. Check the Help files for each wiki site to figure out how to upload files and how to link to them from the wiki pages or how to attach them to the wiki pages.