Blogs and Wikis are similar in that anyone can use them and anyone can comment. The major difference that I see between the two is that blogs are slightly more one sided. The author of the blog has his or her own agenda, begins conversations, and while people may make comments on the blog, it is the author of the blog who seems to have the control. Wikis are set up with collaboration in mind. Their focus is to give everyone an equal level of authorship.
When it comes to reading the blogs of others, I am more likely to read the blogs that are written in a friendly or personal tone. I like ones that may share some personal experience in the classroom, practical (and teacher tested) ideas, and advice.
I actually am part of a wiki for professional development. I am working with other teachers in CESA 2 to incorporate more technology in our classrooms. The coordinator for our program puts articles to read and activities to do on the wiki. Then we share the lesson plans/results of the lesson we tried using technology. Then we meet and discuss some of our challenges and triumphs. If I were to begin a wiki, I like the model she uses and think I would follow along those lines.
That professional development sounds really interesting. I hope to have time to use these in my classroom before the class is over just in case I can't figure it out. Then I'll be able to ask for help if I ned it. What were the biggest challenges of using the wiki and/or blogs in the classrooms and how did you resolve them?
ReplyDeleteI think one of the problems we discussed was trust. Kids are kids and sometimes say stupid things. If we have kids creating their own blogs, how do we monitor what they are saying? People were worried that kids would use their technology for cyber bullying and not educational purposes. Teachers in the class were/are concerned about the lack of control. In D2L, instructors have total control over what gets to stay online and what doesn't. In a wiki, anyone can remove a comment that is undesirable. Blogs give a lot of control to the author and online etiquette becomes a very important focus.
ReplyDeleteYou can actually set up most blogs and wikis to be moderated so you can have more control over what gets posted and which pages of a wiki people can contribute to. There are definitely internet safety and cyberbullying issues that need to be addressed with students, but it should also be apparent to them that anonymous comments aren't allowed so they will be identified. I had to approve each person for the wiki, so I could have prevented someone not in the class from participating and I can tell what changes each person makes through the Page History. I'm not saying we want to spend all our time tracking use, but it is possible to check and students need to be aware of this.
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