Open Spirituality: wikis

One of the guys from pbwiki.com emailed me today and said that they are launching free wikis in two weeks! Surprise, shock and horror ;-O I found out about these guys (pbwiki.com) accidentally when I went to sign-up for a bloggers event that is taking place in London, very, very soon - for those in the charity sector. The event is being run by the fab gang from charitycomms - see the group on facebook! - share, learn, and join the conversation! So...sign up to the event was via pbwiki.com - so, i setup an account in order to add myself to the list. After I couldn't help but have a nosy round. In the sales blurb bit, I saw nothing about charities! - so I dropped them an email and they said thy are to launch a new free service in two weeks! - don't believe me? check out the email they sent (minus personal details).

Wikis are fab - cos they free up knowledge that is locked up in emails, systems, and laptops Information wants to be free and wants to be your helpful friend...but it can't be, when it is caged up in office systems that are not very accessible to remote workers..or when it is in laptops or swimming in a sea of webmail - even with mail search it's a blimmin nightmare!

That's right those of us on the coal face of delivering services to other charities sometimes duplicate efforts
Wikis (wikipedia definition of a wiki) provide an editorial platofrm where we can share knowledge. What ever we want it to be: funding sources, grants, case-studies, best practises, tools, tips, etc. The perfect web platform for remote collaboration. This is where wikis come in to rescue us. If you are not to comfortable with technology, then check out the fab and accessible video from the nice people at common craft who explain everything in plain english ;D

Common Craft's Wikis in Plain English...

Resources/References Wikipedia's definition of what a wiki is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Benefits & pitfalls of wikis
http://tinyurl.com/dm96qw

Wikis at work: benefits & practices
http://tinyurl.com/b8jh9c

Wikis in higher education: teaching and learning with
http://tinyurl.com/crubfd

Just three major employee benefits?
http://tinyurl.com/bby786

wiki software - wikipedia compilation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_software

free wikis for life - comin soon pwiki.com
http://pbwiki.com/

MacArthur Foundation dishes out the reality of truckloads of skills kids picking up online
This results of this fab and extensive research conducted by MacArthur foundation into how time spend online was important for youth development. The paper titled: Living and Learning with New Media raised the following:

Major Findings:

youth use online media to extend friendships and interests
youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online
virtual presence enable youth to become experts based on interests
youth become more independent in seeking and deepening knowledge based on interests
develop status & identity
kids and young adults set their time - and when it is convenient
informal, more relaxed way of learning, empowering and motivating

Implications:

adults should facilitate young people’s engagement with digital media
given the diversity of digital media, it is problematic to develop a standardized set of benchmarks against which to measure young people’s technical and newmedia literacy
in interest-driven participation, adults have an important role to play
to stay relevant in the 21st century, education institutions need to keep pace with the rapid changes introduced by digital media.

800 youths and young adults were involved in the study for a period of over 5000 hours of online observation. This research came out in Nov. 2008, but I was so snowed under, didn't get a chance to post about it ;(

Check out the video...

if you can't see the video below then check it out here.