Blogs and Wikis

Dr. Norm Friesen

Questions

• What is a blog?• What is a Wiki?• What is Wikipedia?• What is RSS?

Terminology: Blog• Blog: • A website where entries

are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.

• Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries

– Wikipedia

Terminology: Wiki• Wiki: is a type of Web site

that allows the visitors to easily:add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration.

• This ease of interaction and operation (along with change-tracking abilities) makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring.

–Wikipedia

Terminology: Wikipedia• Wikipedia (from the words

wiki and encyclopedia) : a multilingual, Web-based free content encyclopedia project

• Written collaboratively by volunteers

• Currently Wikipedia has more than five million articles in many languages, including more than 1.5 million in the English-language version

Terminology: RSS• RSS: a family of web feed formats used

to publish frequently updated pages, such as blogs or news feeds.

• Consumers of RSS content use special browsers (aggregators) to watch for new content in dozens or even hundreds of web feeds.

• E.g: mail.google.com

Terminology: Blogosphere• Blogosphere is the

collective term encompassing all blogs as a community or social network. Many weblogs are densely inter-connected; bloggers read others' blogs, link to them, reference them in their own writing, and post comments on each others' blogs. Because of this, the interconnected blogs have grown their own culture. (e.g. http://technorati.com)

Blogs: educational uses generally

(Brighouse 2004)

1. Standard Class Webpage(s):• Address recurring questions/issues

2. Interesting developments that relate to the theme of the course (via instructor)

• Current events, Web sites mentioned, etc.3. Organization of in-class discussion

• Blogging has distinct advantages over more common threaded discussion in its support of style, ownership and identity

• Inefficiencies in threading and linking (Cameron & Anderson)

General educational uses (Brighouse 2004)

4. Group Blogs: students create (and present?) a group project using a blog

5. Requiring students to write their own blogs as part of their grade

• In conjunction with an assignment; e.g. an article review

Wikis: General Educational Uses(Science of Spectroscopy)

• Easily create simple websites (eliminates technical obstacles to putting things online)

• Project development with peer review (e.g. write a report/paper gradually, with feedback from instructor/students before final draft)

• Group Authoring (i.e. online group work) Using a wiki “pulls” the group members together to build and edit the document on a wiki page. It also allows all group members immediate, equal access to the most recent version of the document. (Tracking collaborative work using multiple wiki

Wikis: General Educational Uses(Science of Spectroscopy)

• Data Collection Because of its ease of editing, a wiki can be very useful for collecting data from a group of students. The wiki best suited for this right now is JotSpot, which has a data collection tool you can install with just a few clicks.

• Review classes & teachers Students at Brown University started CAW - Course Advisor Wiki, a place for students to collaboratively write reviews of courses they've taken.

• Presentations Some people are using a wiki in place of conventional presentation software, like Keynote and PowerPoint.

The Blog AssignmentRead topic introduction on my blog

Find an articleSubmit article by e-mail for approval

Write a review

Submit review by e-mail and post to blog

Read reviews on two other blogs. Post comments and a question

Respond to comments and questions

Assignment 1 (1 of 4)

• Participation Required in class and for the blog assignment

• Write up a summary of the contents of one of the recommended readings: 1.5 to 2 single-spaced pages.

• Post draft to a Blog: 27.6• Comment on others’ proposals: 29.6• Submit final version soon afterwards: (03.07)

Assignment 1 (2 of 4)• Your review should give a brief overview of the

article's contents, • Your review should contextualize and articulate a

response to the article • You can contextualize the article reviewed in terms

of what you have learned thus far in the course • Your response to the article can be critical or

positive, or can suggest further areas for research: but whatever your response, please back it up or support it.

Assignment 1 (3 of 4)

• This support can take the form of evidence from your own experience or from a quality source. This evidence can also take the form of the kind of study you are proposing for the second assignment.

• Post your review to your blog, and send a copy (in Word or HTML or plain text) to norm.friesen@gmail.com

Assignment 1 (4 of 4)

• Read others' reviews, and comment on them (at least two others reviews/comments).

• Your postings can ask questions about the project that might be raised for you, or can draw connections between projects that you have learned about.

• Respond to any comments or questions that you receive on your review or blog.

Some student blogs

• http://testedontrees.blogspot.com  • http://earthboundbeing.blogspot.com• http://amandasdendro.blogspot.com 

• http://karlena19.blogspot.com

Primary Outcomes• Students learn course material both

individually and collaboratively• Learning from peers is enhanced

through blog visits• Students improve writing skills• Students write for a “public” audience• Students learn the potential uses of

blogs and how to manage them

Secondary Beneficial Outcomes

• More teacher-student contact through e-mail

• Teacher learns from the students• Forum for peer social interaction• Students express their individuality and

values• Affords shy students the opportunity to

find their ‘voice’

Sources

• The street finds its own use for things (Harry Brighouse, 2004) http://crookedtimber.org/2003/09/15/the-street-finds-its-own-use-for-things

• Comparing Weblogs to Threaded Discussion Tools in Online Educational Contexts http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Nov_06/article01.htm

• Using wiki in educationhttp://www.scienceofspectroscopy.info/edit/index.php?title=Using_wiki_in_education