Wikis: To Be or Not To Be?

For years, I've used a wiki to share information with parents.  I've never opened it up for parents to discuss and contribute though.  And oddly enough, only one parent has ever tried to contribute.

During this course and our wiki assignment, I found that wikis can be used for collaborating with others.  It's a nice, convenient place for everyone to meet and chat, rather than sending emails back and forth.  When group projects and communication are necessary, I do believe that wikis are the way to go.  Thinking about using a wiki and actually using a wiki to collaborate has proven to be a different experience.  Prior to using the wiki, I thought, this will be great. Everyone can pop on, contribute and voila!  the assignment will be complete.  I didn't think about the time it takes for everyone to log on, contribute, read each other's posts and then come to a consensus.

So...wiki: to be or not to be?  I think using it for a group project with a bunch of people that are far away from each other would be the best means of communicating.  However, I've found that the communication and work didn't get done as quickly as I thought it would. What did I learn from this project?  Start early and hope that everyone else does too.  Plan.  Don't decide what you're going to do without collaborating with your group members.  Your time might as well be wasted if someone else researched the same thing as you.