Wikis are web pages that allow groups of users to work collaboratively in creating and editing content. Blogs are usually personal websites where authors write posts frequently about their experience to share with others who can comment. Blogs allow for discussions between the author and readers.
How do they support learning?
In education, many teachers have been using wikis and blogs for their students to work individually or in groups because of several reasons. First, they are free of charge and easy to build and maintain. Second, they allow for collaborative work and discussions. Third, they give learners more space to write with a sense of ownership that may motivate them to learn more. Fourth, in blogs and Wikis, teachers and students are able to add materials, media, RSS feeds, news, social media, and many applications.Teachers also can use blogs to enhance their professional development and learn in communities of practice.
Personally,
I prefer discussions in blogs more than in threaded discussions because blogs
allow the reader to see all comments on one page instead of going back an
fourth in threaded discussions like Blackboard’s discussion board that I used
to participate in for my online classes. Reading discussions in Blackboard is
time consuming and to avoid that I used to collect all posts of a thread in one
page to be able to read posts faster.
Any challenges?
This blog is my first experience in blogging but I can see its potential as a former teacher and instructional designer. As a student in graduate courses, I have used Wikispace in one class to build a collaborative glossary of educational terminologies and that collaborative work was more organized than I thought it would be. All classmates were assigned to write definitions of words of their choice which is less complicated than other possible written assignments. Wikis and blogs are the technology and teachers or instructional designers have to ensure that students understand how to use them to work within groups. Wikis for example make tracking easier by offering the history feature that enable users to detect new changes, who made them, and when. One more thing I like about blogging in Google Blogger is that it is free of ads unlike Wordpress.com.
This blog is my first experience in blogging but I can see its potential as a former teacher and instructional designer. As a student in graduate courses, I have used Wikispace in one class to build a collaborative glossary of educational terminologies and that collaborative work was more organized than I thought it would be. All classmates were assigned to write definitions of words of their choice which is less complicated than other possible written assignments. Wikis and blogs are the technology and teachers or instructional designers have to ensure that students understand how to use them to work within groups. Wikis for example make tracking easier by offering the history feature that enable users to detect new changes, who made them, and when. One more thing I like about blogging in Google Blogger is that it is free of ads unlike Wordpress.com.
Does my experience different than yours?
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