I used a wiki for the first time this past spring term. I felt my Advanced Writing Workshop students needed to learn about professional writing for Web 2.0, and I figured it would be better for THEM to do the research than for me to do it and give it to them. So the students brainstormed various topics--professional writing for Facebook was the most popular!--and divided them up. Then they did some web research on the topics and created wiki pages for each one. First they just dumped their info on the page; later, I had them integrate and synthesize the material so it wasn't just a patchwork.
That last part was the hardest: synthesizing all the material. Students seem to think if they find, copy, and paste material, they've "researched" it. Always has been that way, but web 2.0 makes that process really easy. Synthesizing the material is still hard. I need to think more about how I conduct that assignment if I do it again so that it's not just a patchwork of cut and paste.
I use Wikipedia as a "first source" when I'm finding out about something I know nothing about. Like pop culture!
Books I've Read
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