After watching the video posted by Prof. Ruffini, I feel it is my duty to let everyone know that private wikis will soon be a dead medium. Wikis in Plain English is a great explanation. The camping example along with lists and things that need to be brought on the trip. The reality is that Google has made this kind of wiki collaboration archaic. With the advent of Google Docs, we can now collaborate in real time.
With a wiki it is up to the individual to wait and edit when someone else has completed their edits. With a Google doc, I can see (in real time) what changes are being made. This kind of collaboration will soon end the private use of wikis. Wikis such as Wikipedia and other large broad based informational wikis will continue to flourish due to the never ending desire for quick access to information, but the private wiki will soon be no more.
Wikis are one thing that I've never used with my students. I have, of course, used them in classes myself, but I'll admit, I struggled to grasp the benefit. As you said, I'd rather communicate with somebody and have a discussion rather than wait for them to edit my information. For factual information and assignments I could see the benefit, though. For example, each student could define a set amount of the weekly vocabulary terms and add it to the classes wiki to help create an entire class list. In that sense perhaps they'll live on.
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