Case Study: 7thwardbag.pbworks.com

We just finished our case study with Nils Gore from Rebuilding the Seventh (7thwardbag.pbworks.com).

It’s a wiki built that’s helping assist a collective of architectural schools and other collaborators in rebuilding the New Orleans 7th Ward.

PBwiki: Why’d you choose PBwiki?
Nils Gore: …we decided to use it because of its flat learning curve. We also have collaborators in New Orleans, and had no idea how web-savvy they were (in terms of web design). I had seen a blog link to PBwiki a few weeks before and had tried it out. So I knew how easy it was to make instant web pages, and that it would be feasible with a diverse group of people. I have attempted before to have classes of students do a group website, with each adding content, using Dreamweaver, and it was basically a disaster. I’ll never attempt it again.

PBwiki: What’s Rebuilding the Seventh wiki about?
Nils Gore: We started this collaborative project in January 2006 to bring architecture students to New Orleans and help with the re-building effort. We needed a place to quickly post stuff, as a way of 1) communicating with ourselves; and 2) communicating with others outside of our organization. We have collaborators in Kansas and in New Orleans.

PBwiki: How do you use your PBwiki?
Nils Gore: We use it as a way of documenting our completed work in New Orleans; as a way of making links to other web content about new Orleans (mostly for our own students education); as a way of sharing files with all of the collaborators; and as a way of allowing numerous people to add content without screwing up the page design (too badly).

PBwiki: Give us a project update! Is this particular project done?
Nils Gore: We could work there forever if we wanted to; no shortage of work to be done in New Orleans! We just do one or two projects at a time, on a semester-by-semester basis, paying for it as we go along.

PBwiki: Would you tell others about PBwiki?
Nils Gore: I have several times.

PBwiki: What has been the biggest surprise for you in using PBwiki?
Nils Gore: I have quite a bit of web design experience, and could be doing this myself. But I have to spend very little time fooling around with PBwiki; less than I would if I were building it from scratch. I’m also surprised that the students haven’t messed it up when adding their own work. It has an incredibly flat learning curve.