Tangled up in Purple » wikipedia

Linkeracy 18 January 2009

nix — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:48:45 +0000

Obama’s Social Media Toolkit – how to grow a brand / use new media technologies effectively / the crawl, walk, run, fly philosophy – from Steve Rubel

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The next step in applying Gladwell/ Tipping Point theories to twitter users. An interesting look at the Tipping Point and Twitter. Are you a connector, a salesman or a maven?

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The Official Google Blog reports that there are now more that 100,000 knols. What’s a knol? It’s a unit of knowledge, an article written by someone who is an authority on a topic. Better, worse or different to the Wikipedia?

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Check out the VisualWikipedia for a mashup of the Wikipedia, pictures and videos. Might be worth keeping an eye on.

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Why translating need to be taken seriously. A good laugh from the BBC.

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

nix — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:42:34 +0000

I was interested to see Dorothy’s post about searching (and tagging)

On the other hand the same teacher instinct was apalled by how little progress we have made teaching people how to search in a way that will return the information they are seeking. Particularly using appropriate key words to refine our searches.

I have been constructing a similar post in my head. Beware the river of consciousness that follows.

Recent work that I have done with teachers has lead me to wonder about how we seem to have hit skills in a roundabout sort of way. I’m often asked to work to help teachers get skills in using ICTs to present kid’s work or to show off the finished product – PowerPoint, Photo Story, iMovie or Movie Maker. Or teachers want a bunch of websites to use in their classroom programme.

If I suggest spending time looking at search techniques or alternatives to Google, they say that they know how to use Google. And then, I watch as they type a web address into the Google’s search bar.

Just over a year ago I wrote a post about the core things that computer users of any age need to know. Turning the beast on, where and how to use right click context menus and saving and retreiving files. I also said that we need to have some internet skills. And one of the most important of those skills is to understand the difference between an address bar and the search box.

As I see it we’ve taken a whole language approach to the concept of information and knowledge literacy and while we bemoan the fact that many kids can’t sort out the fact from fiction we can’t see that at the moment many adults don’t know how to tell either.

A few weeks ago my son’s science teacher was horrified that one of her students might use the Wikipedia for information. “Don’t let him use the Wikipedia,” she told me, “It can be changed!” We were in the middle of the mid-year interviews and I was asking why she was accepting material from him that contained unreferenced facts and information.

I am regularly informed that the Wikipedia is an unsafe place to look for information. Often times the person who kindly tells me this has just discovered this at a professional development course. My response depends on the environment but I have been known to tell people that, “Yes, I know, they have even let me edit Wikipedia articles.”

The Wikipedia is no better or no worse than any other website – if you understand its purpose and its place in the ecology of the internet and information. It’s a great place to start your research but a bad place to end.

In her post Dorothy talks about the way that Google has gently removed us from the reality that poor spelling and loose thinking won’t get us what we want.

I guess what I was seeing at the Googleplex was a testimony to the failure of this approach. When Google came along with their user-friendly search engine they not only made it simple to do an advanced search (just click the Advanced Search button!) but they seem to make intuitive sense of our paltry efforts. Whether it is poor spelling and grammar or people who simply type in a question, Google seems to be able to to supply a list of intelligent results.

I think we have to go one step further back – yet again – and look at search engine design and search engine purpose. It’s not always about helping you find the information that you want, but about directing you to what it wants you to see. We need to step away from the Google (and Google Advanced) is good / Wikipedia is bad mode and take a look at the myriads of other options that are out there.

Linkeracy

nix — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:18:17 +0000

Podcasting Toolbox: 70+ Podcasting Tools and Resources from Mashable

and …

Try WikiMindMap for a visual representation of a Wikipedia search:

WikiMindMap is a tool to browse easily and efficiently in Wiki content, inspired by the mindmap technique. Wiki pages in large public wiki’s, such as wikipedia, have become rich and complex documents. Thus, it is not allways (sic) straight forward to find the information you are really looking for. This tool aims to support users to get a good structured and easy understandable overview of the topic you are looking for.

It’s a useful way to start a search or to look at related concepts.

Citizendium – Watch This Space

nix — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:08:20 +0000

The Citizendium is a project that aims to create

“a “citizens’ compendium of everything,” is an experimental new wiki project. The project, started by a co-founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on that model by adding “gentle expert oversight” and requiring contributors to use their real names.” from Citizendium Main Page

This is an interesting development in the evolution of the internet. The Wikipedia has been criticised for the way that its articles can be subverted by self-proclaimed experts and by those with barrows to push. It will be interesting to follow what happens with this new initiative.

Content Sharing

Content Sharing

nix — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 22:37:57 +0000

Andy Carvin has blogged about Jimmy Wales’ (the founder of the Wikipdeia) latest project:

He also announced a new project called Wikiversity. It will serve as an online center for the creation and use of free learning materials and activities. It will create and host a range of free content materials, multilingual learning materials, for all ages in all languages. It’ll host scholarly projects and communities to support these materials, and foster research based in part on existing resources in Wikiversity and other wikimedia projects. Launching in three languages, in a six-month beta, within a month.

This will be an interesting idea to watch develop.

In his notes from a Jimmy Wales presentation, Andy reports that the Wikipedia organisation are really concerned about quality.

“We have huge articles on things like Truthiness, like things that Britannica hasn’t even heard of – but I’m just teasing there.”

“We’re not there yet. We’re not as good as Britannica – yet…. So in the coming years we’re going to see a turn towards quality.”

In other surfing, I found a link to another blog called The Best Media in Life. This blog aims to show some of the gazillions of material available under Creative Commons license or in the public domain. It’s a great little site wityh heaps of links to CC texts, music and other audio.

Speaking of the Creative Commons, I have just discovered a new resource on the site They have developed new tabbed Creative Commons Search engine. Find Flickr images, use Google or Yahoo! Good stuff. This willmake it even easier to find “stuff” to use in presentations, movies and podcasts.