A collaborative wiki could have a few different uses in the public school system. I think it would be useful for administration to use to communicate with the staff. Announcements could be made and referred back to, policy or schedule changes could be posted, committees could have a spot to report their proceedings. The responsibility to read could be placed on the staff and readership could be limited to current employees and not visible to the general public. There is a heightened awareness, however, of the sunshine laws and due apprehension regarding posting anything in writing. That might limit the effectiveness.
As a technology integration specialist, a wiki could have been a very useful place to develop a clearing house for general directions and tips on any given software or hardware. If one could encourage regular visitation, it would be very useful to other educators if those who are tech savvy could post ways in which they utilize the various technologies in their classrooms - almost like a virtual brainstorming area.
As a classroom teacher of technology, the wiki could function in much the same way - as new applications are introduced, students could post ideas for usage, tips and links to sites they have found they contain more information. This would also work well for varying social issues I very surreptitiously insert into their assignments. The blogging they do - although many of them fought it, much like they do any assignment. I required what came to be known as the Monday Blog, where they were to write about their weekends. This was initially to cut down on the wasted classtime on Monday where everyone wants to share their happenings with me or the rest of the world. Even though this was supposed to be a fun way for them to communicate with their classmates, as soon as it became classwork, the excuses not to write began. "I didn't do nothin's" were to blame in most instances. I am a firm believer in taking away excuses, so I provided them with links to topix.com, tweentribune and newsmap (which is really cool, btw) and told them they had the option of posting about trending topics locally or globally. Amazingly, nobody ever posted on a current event and their weekends became much more action packed.
The design challenges would be few, teaching teachers to utilize either might take some arm twisting. Convincing the county to unblock the sites would be a challenge because they feel that anything we need to do online should be accomplished via the Schoolwires web hosting services they overpaid for (to make it easier for teachers to maintain a webpage, but ease was not the issue). Tying anything into learning the webpage application compounds the resistance. Another implementation issue would be getting people into the habit of checking the wiki or blog on a daily basis. Finally, I will reiterate the hesitancy of anyone who works for the state to publish much of anything sue to subjection to Sunshine Laws. There shouldn't be anything posted to either that should not see the light of day, but there is a fear of repercussion.
A user initiated effort could work here, for technology how tos that faculty, staff and students utilize after hours. One major implementation issue would remain - we still have a high population of teachers who are intimidated by others finding out what they don't know, especially a student.
