March 02, 2006
Thinking about Lessig and Wikis
I've been looking into Lawrence Lessig's work with wikis this evening. The search has led me down many paths I didn't anticipate.
I've known since last year that he's been working innovatively with wikis. In fact, it was discovering that he had Free Culture online as a wiki that catalyzed my decision to start experimenting with wikis and their collaborative potentials in my classes.
What I came across this evening:
- Lessig's earlier work, Code (1999) is also available as a wiki. Actually, let me amend that: Lessig has released Code as a wiki to facilitate revisions for Code v.2, which was due to be released in late 2005. I'm actually unclear if v.2 was released in paper form, or if the wiki exists now as Code v.2. In any event, the discussion is very interesting to look at -- as well as the concept in and of itself of opening up to collaboration in this way. The chief questions my students always have when we discuss the Free Culture wiki is what happens to the revised version. Does it exist independently of the published version? Will it eventually be published? Or will it be edited ad infinitum?
- Lessig's broken new ground (again) by creating the Anti-Lessig Reader This wiki is intended, as he puts it,
to build a collection of content that criticizes my work. ... My aim is to create a simple source for "the other side of the story."
This is a relatively recent event -- the blog post that first led me in this direction is dated January 22, 2006. This is a fundamentally different use of wikis than found in Code v.2 -- here rather than allowing people the ability to actually modify text, he's opening up physical space for counterarguments. (As a side note, the Kairosnews blogpost about the Anti-Lessig Reader contains a very current and very fascinating debate about the nature and limitations of wikis -- worth a read) - Lastly, Stanford Magazine actually did a feature on Lessig and wikis this past fall. How could I miss that? It offers a nice overview of Lessig's work with wikis for this project ... but what it really points out to me more than anything is the fact that I should probably try to seek out Lessig myself and talk this over with him. I have so many questions about wiki use that I would love to have answered ...
Posted by calfano at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)