I agree with you as well, that everyone editing the page is highly frustrating and confusing at times (try explaining to two dozen 4th graders why they have to wait turns to edit a wiki page). I’ll have to look into Coventi to see how the discussion is highlighted.

Dan:
Thank you for the comments, they are greatly appreciated! The comments that both you and Sim have shared, when followed up with more inciteful remarks, actually help bring more depth to the conversation, and remind us that every tool has it’s positives and negatives. No worries about making the conversation more cloudy, as the more concerned voices that participate, the richer the conversation

I wanted to apologize for the tone of my past message. I was trying to point out an alternative way of thinking about group editing and in my excitement it came across as an advertisement, as Clif rightly points out.

Ben, I agree that most wikis have a discussion tab and that access controls do exist in robust wiki engines. But the idea of “everyone edits the page” is what a lot of people who are unfamiliar with wikis tend to associate with wikis. What I like about Coventi and what I was trying to express is that bringing the idea of “everyone discusses the page” to the forefront might help more people use wiki-like solutions. I can see how my original post was confusing in this regard so thank you for pointing this out.

Anyway, sorry again for the advertising speak, and hats off to Ramit and the PbWiki team for making a great service!

– Sim

This is Dan from Coventi.

PBWiki has definitely set a high bar for its commitment to educators. We agree that wikis are highly valuable, and that Mr. Sethi’s service is one of the best out there.

Sim is a passionate Coventi user who has a vision of bringing our model of collaboration to wikis, and of course we see why many of you might object to the manner in which it was presented.

I apologize that Coventi has now taken up two posts on your conversation, and hope that we haven’t clouded your discussion of wikis in education.

And Ben– I haven’t yet checked out Wikispaces, thanks for the heads up!

Yours,

Dan Wilson
dan at coventi dot com

The model of “everyone editing a page” and the model of “my page is mine” can peacefully co-exsist, and I would expect any decent wiki-engine, like PBWiki, to provide a means to secure certain pages from the general public, or make other pages completely wide open.

In repsonse to the original post, I’m excited that PBWiki is pushing their boundaries and tools. I currently use Wikispaces because they had WYSWIG editors long before PBWiki, as well as advertisement free sites for educators. However, with all of the new features coming online at PBWiki, I’m very interested to see what’s going on. I’ve always loved PBWiki’s look and feel, so I’m glad I got to read about what’s new that’s going on.

What is another word for this?
SPAM

Thanks for the spam Mr. Sim.

1) People usually don’t feel comfortable editing what someone else has written. People feel comfortable discussing someone’s writing and suggesting edits, not directly editing the page. There is no easy way to do this in current wikis.

2) People need control over their content in order to have ownership of their work. The model of everyone editing a page is not how most people work. For example, a student edits a document while the teacher gives feedback; one or two researchers write a paper and their colleagues provide comments and suggested edits.

Coventi Pages solves both of these problems by bringing the power of instant messaging and track changes to a wiki. It turns the model around: it’s no longer about editing everyone’s work; it’s about discussing everyone’s work, a far more natural way for students and faculty to interact.

Check it out at http://www.coventi.com