The readings about Blogs and Wikis were very informative. I think both have a lot of uses in the classroom. The nice thing about these resources is that they can be used for a lot of things. The research provided in the slideshow was excellent. Posts and discussions on blogs and wikis lead to increased research by the students, increased discussion, increased collaboration, and increased face to face participation. I’ve noticed this through my own personal experience. I’m a relatively shy person. When I was in high school I dreaded being embarrassed by giving a wrong answer or asking a “dumb” question. Even today, I’m more likely to ask for help from other teachers when I have time to write out my questions and thoughts (which is easily done online). For that reason, I love using my blog and Twitter as a place to discuss teaching ideas.
In terms of preference, I think both have their benefits. Blogs are great for reflection and discussion, while wikis have a little more flexibility and allow for more collaboration. Personally, I prefer blogs. Wikis seem bulky to me for some reason. I think it would take more time to get the students used to a wiki as well. Blogs are very easy to start and use. At my school district, we are required to have a Moodle for each one of our classes. For those of you not familiar with Moodle, this is a site that can pretty much do all these things. The site can be used to host documents, videos, pictures, links, forums, and quizzes. It also has blogging and wiki capabilities. Because it does do all of these things, the resources aren’t top notch. You can’t create a blog as nice as the ones we’ve created for this class. It does have its limitations. I need to explore the blog and wiki capabilities of Moodle a little more before I decide whether to create a blog through Moodle or just put a link to a blog on my Moodle. If anyone has used the blog or wiki functions on Moodle before, let me know what you think.
