Wha wha wiki wiki wiki...whaaaaaaaat?

My day is complete.I have learned something new. In Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Will Richardson explains that the term wiki is an abbreviation of wiki-wiki which in Hawaiian means "quick".  For the average teenager, add -pedia to it and it becomes the sole source of all human knowledge. Add "group" to the front of the word and it becomes the bane of my existence at the moment.Richardson suggests that Wikipedia is the "poster child for the collaborative construction of knowledge and truth that the new, interactive Web facilitates".  I feel like a different sort of poster child.  I understand how Wikipedia works. People from all over the world can edit and supplement information about any topic ranging from snail tails to rocket trails and the idea is that since it is public to everyone, no one group or individual can spin the information too wildly out of proportion. I'm okay with factual stuff like how many kilograms there are in a pound (It's 2.204 by the way. I didn't have to look it up but I did confirm it and even SIRI understood what I wanted and she almost never gets things right) but I am a little sketchy on subjective issues like race, politics or religion. After all some things just can't be quantified and individual experiences can build bias.  Meanwhile Thomas Friedman insists that the world is flat as a result of all the potential globalization that technology provides and Wikipedia is just one part of that new world map. Following closely on its heels is the idea that students in individual class rooms will benefit from a class wiki site.  Some educators are well on this path while others, myself included, are just hearing about this latest and greatest tool. Richardson assures us that regardless of how we feel about them, using wikis in the class room can foster a sense of community and encourage the exchange of information and creative ideas among students.  If group collaboration is the new hope for the future then perhaps I had better try to prepare  my students for this new world order.  After all some day I may start to drift off in a haze of anesthesia and glance up to see face of a former student frantically tapping away on the latest portable electronic device trying to retrieve vital information needed for my operation.  I can only hope that they know how to access Anesthesiologists-R-Us and that I was the one that taught them how.