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Wikipedia defines a personal wiki as "a wiki maintained primarily for personal use" that is used mainly for organizing information. They list many different single-user wiki programs and apps, but do elaborate much on what makes a wiki a personal notebook beyond that definition.

An example of using a wiki as a personal notebook is a PersonalPage. For the purposes of this class, each PersonalPage is linked to using the name of a student. This could be used as an introductory page, a place to keep notes for class, management of a project, a way to organize personal links such as social media websites, blogs, and frequently visited pages. When working with your personal page, if you use it to keep track of notes and things like that, it can quickly become a web of pages.

According to - UruGuru, as well as what we have already learned so far, wikis were intended to share information. The information s shared publicly, able to be viewed and edited by anyone viewing the wiki, often without even having to register as a member of the wiki. However, sometimes an author may want some information kept private. This may be especially true when one is using the wiki for personal notes.

One way to restrict access to personal notes is to allow others to view the wiki but not make edits.

As an author you can also choose to make your wiki "Invite only". The Wikispaces Privacy and Permissions page gives an elaborate overview of the various privacy settings available through their wiki programs, and EPFL (self-described as "Europe’s most cosmopolitan technical university") gives step by step instructions on how to specify who may view wikis set up by their students, and a brief definition of the roles people play as readers, editors, or administrators.

A good place to begin to set up a wiki as a personal notebook may be the creation of an IntroductoryPage. This can be used to let readers know who you are, what you do for a living, your hobbies and interests, favorite foods, places traveled to, and anything else you may want others to know. This is also a great place to add links to other pages. For example, if you wanted to list all the places you have traveled to, you could start by simply typing the link to another page, and on that page would be the list of places to which you have traveled. From there you could discuss your travels, creating more pages for the types of food you have eaten, places you stayed, and inserting photos.

Wait...aren't Wikis for Discussion and Collaboration?

Not necessarily. Wikis can be for these things...and that would be using WikiAsSocialNotebook.

Sometimes wikis are great for personal IdeaBoards.

WikiAsPersonalNotebook can also be used to organize large amounts of research. I can create a page for every source of information I struggle through, link it to other relevant pages, which helps connect overlapping ideas and so forth. Some wikis allow for page tagging, which makes looking for every source you have that covered a particular idea or event easy to find when you sit down to hash out that piece of the puzzle. It allows you to connect things in different ways, and streamlines the search through a ton of notes to find a specific point. It may not be collaboration with others in a community-building kind of way, but it fits with Ward Cunningham's original idea of "the simplest online database that could possibly work." Just a thought on this. Wikis are useful for so many things.

I hadn't thought about that AnnaHamann....thanks for that perspective! -JennaLong

"WikiAsPersonalNotebook can also be used to organize large amounts of research." Last semester I used mine as a place to keep my notes organized for a couple different classes. -MelindaSingleton
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