I have been “reading” the book Wikinomics while driving to work and on my morning walk. I read it by listening to it on my iPod. I think all educators as well as business people need to read this book as it illustrates the dramatic changes that “mass collaboration’ or “peer production” is causing in the workplace and school systems. Wikipedia is the largest collection of information with 700 million articles in 200 language that is mass produced with only 5 paid employees, but legions of Wikipedians who give of their time to either add content or police content added by registered users.

Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, Vodcasts, and other forms of disruptive technologies are here to stay and they are indeed changing the way businesses work. As a school we need to be prepared for these changes which is why I am so glad that we have started to use The DAILE Moodle as it represents peer production since it is open source software that thousands of schools and universities are helping to write and perfect daily. I love the fact that there are nightly builds of Moodle done to fix or patch problems discovered.

Some believe that open source software is done by people who have long hair and live in their parents basement. While there is nothing wrong with having long hair nor living in your mother’s basement, if you so choose, it is important to note that the authors of Wikinomics note that at present, IBM and Intel are the two largest companies that donate time and resources to the further development of Linux. What companies are realizing is that there are more people outside of an organization that can solve problems then they have inside.

I think teachers should start to use wikis with their classes as a way to create content. Imagine a wiki report on Dovey Coe? What would that look like?

California Open Textbook Project is trying to create textbooks using wikis. Curriki is a wiki global learning community attempting to create a knowledge and learning platform for all learners around the world. There are some big names behind this organization.

A must read for all of us in education as change happens here after industry but we are preparing students for their future, which is being created as we speak.
“Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything” (Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams)

Here is a short example of the book on WikipediaWikinomics Snippet on Wikipedia