rebelutionary / 2.0

Using Wiki In Education / 2007 Feb 08

We have so much news coming out of Atlassian at the moment - which is fantastic - so expect a raft of updates in the next few days.

Stewart Mader has recently joined us as our full-time wiki evangelist (and we're stoked to have him on board) but before he joined the last thing he did was edit a book called Using Wiki In Education.

The book itself is fantastic. It tells of a broad range of case studies and real world examples from educators around the globe truly using wikis in their institutions - from kindergartens, high schools, libraries and universities. The book was written by about 10 or so authors from around the world over the last year, using a Confluence wiki as their writing platform.

As Jon wrote on our news blog, we're purchasing and sending copies of the book to all our academic customers - both those that currently have licenses (which I believe is well into the hundreds of institutions) and those that buy within the next 6 months.

I think this is an incredibly valuable thing to do and something Atlassian is completely behind. We've always believed in the power of wikis for educating. Our academic customers have received a flat 50% discount since we opened our doors.

Wikis would have been useful in so much of my university life, I hope this gesture can spur more educational institutions to "see the light".

As I wrote in my foreword:

At the most basic level, education is about the transfer of knowledge: a learned person, the instructor, passing information to someone who wishes to learn. Knowledge is gained slowly, over time, built up through small but constant additions. Ideas are expounded, theories are proved and discoveries are made. Knowledge is built layer upon layer. Wikis are designed to allow the facilitation of this process in a collaborative and transparent way.

As different editors — student, administrator, instructor — contribute to a wiki document, this same gradual layering of knowledge occurs. This underlines the fundamental power of a wiki.

If you're not one of our customers (and not intending to be one soon!) you can still purchase the book online for $19. Read more at Using Wiki In Education (including some free sample chapters).

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