Thursday, July 16, 2009

Blog vs. Wiki

A BLOG (contraction of "weblog") is a website maintained and belonging to one user featuring commentary and/or news, with photos, videos and weblinks mixed in with text. I first heard of such a thing back in 2001, when Neil Gaiman started his blog. Many I have seen are hobby-related, others are commentary on news (which is usually if not always taken from professional news sources), a diary of one's child's development, insane ramblings, etc.

A wiki is a website whose intent is collaborative, between many users. The best-known example is Wikipedia. Any user can create or edit a Wikipedia entry. In fact, you don't even need to be a registered member to edit most entries. (The downside to this is vandalism; entries have to be heavily monitored). This is different from a blog, where the site belongs to one registered user (for example, my blog is registered to my personal Google account) and only that user can create and edit entries. Other users may leave comments, but the blog owner has the power to specify who may leave comments, if at all.

How can these be used in education? One idea is that students can create a blog as a form of expository writing - how to do something, illustrated with photos and videos as appropriate. A blog can also used more informally as fun info about the student, or as a virtual form of journalling - though comments would have to be moderated, or the journal blog limited to only the student and teacher.

A wiki can used for collaborative group projects on practically any topic. The wiki would have to be set up so that only the teacher and those group members can contribute, to avoid vandalism.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

First Post

First post in Blogger.


Rocketship



Arturo and Diz