Exchange 2 with Ken: technical hurdles
I replied to Ken's email with a fraction of what I had to say because of timing. Thinking more about the wikis I know, there is a tough balance to strike between dynamic and static content. It's easy for the dynamic 'noise' of a wiki to start obscuring what could be the stable reference material.
Further, in the classroom, the overhead required to have students build equally, productively, and in a manner you can usefully assess might be more than wikis are worth as a tool. George Landow found some ways around that problem a while back, or missed them entirely somehow, and I'll have to finish reading Hypertext 2.0 to see how.
Ken went on to point out a problem that I had when I tried to work hypertext into my public school student teaching:
The pedagogical problem with desktop programs -- Radio, Moinx, Tiddlywiki -- is that students don't always have reliable access to a computer, can't always install something, don't have a mac, etc. so one is forced to use more centralized servers. It's a shame because some of the desktop functions are powerful.
I haven't played with desktop-based wikis, and am curious to see and hear about the advantages.
