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A wiki is an easily edited web page, something like a white board in cyberspace. You don't have to know web page coding to use a wiki. You edit a wiki page much as you would use a word processor. To learn more about wikis, try your hand at editing one, and open a free wiki for yourself, visit www.pbwiki.com.
Interfaith Tech Associates uses communication technology to increase dialogue and collaboration among communities of faith, both locally and globally.
For communication technology to be a useful peacemaking tool, computer users must be competent. So ITA promotes web literacy by posting educational resources online and conducting local workshops.
ITA stresses appropriate technology
- Insofar as possible, ITA uses inexpensive or free software, because ithe cost of technology hinders some communities of faith from participating in digital communication.
- Also, ITA strives to use opensource, cross platform software because this makes it possible for users who have various makes of computer to collaborate easily.
- Finally, ITA promotes wiki-based websites, because these are the easiest to construct and maintain.
A bit more about wiki-based websites:
Just about every community of faith would like to have a website. But some don't have the budgets or skill to assemble one. Some have the budget, but not the skill, so they hire an expert to make an attractive, sophisticated site. At first they are thrilled, because it's gorgeous, but before long it languishes, because the funds aren't there to keep paying the expert to maintain it. Or even if there are funds, the site often goes stale for lack of interesting new content because there are not enough capable computer users in the community to generate and process articles, photos, videos, sound files, etc. A wiki-based website (like this one) addresses these problems, because it provides appropriate technology for communities lacking funds, or skill, or both.
Here's how a wiki-based website can be set up:
The community constructs a technologically simple, but attractive welcoming page, with a free, cross platform web page editor, like NVU. They link that welcoming page to the remainder of the website, which is posted on a wiki.
Here are the advantages of a wiki-based website:
- A wiki is very easy to maintain. Both the interrelationship of the pages and the appearance of page content is easy to manipulate with word-processing-like tools. Little knowledge of web coding is required.
- A wiki permits several persons (with access to a password) to collaborate in editing. Thus, the burden of keeping a website up-to-date can be shared by a team, rather than putting it on the shoulders of one or two persons who have the technical know-how and requisite software (which is often expensive).
- Editing a wiki requires no purchase of software. All the editing is done using software that is on the server computer, not on your local computer.
- Thus, you can edit your wiki anywhere you have a connection to the internet: at home, at work, traveling, etc.
- A wiki is inexpensive. A version with advertising in the margins is absolutely free. For $10/month you can have a wiki without advertising, and several other benefits.
- A wiki facilitates the easy embedding of such dynamic features as video, slide shows, maps, search engine windows, and more.
- A whole wiki website can be backed up to a local computer in an archived file in a matter of seconds. Thus, a wiki website is easily protected from server-based mishaps.
Summarizing, a wiki-based website is easy to maintain, inexpensive, flexible, and secure. It provides appropriate technology to communities of faith striving to communicate and collaborate for peace in a world still divided by large disparities in wealth and know-how.
If you would like to investigate a wiki-based website for your community of faith, please email the ITA Director.
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