tet200 blogs and wikis

BLOGS & WIKIS

September 2009

Objectives

Define and explore uses for Blogs

Define and explore uses for Wikis

Review where blogs and wikis fit into our lives (socially and educationally)

ThemesGlobal Awareness

Financial, Economic, Business and Entrepreneurial Literacy

Civic Literacy Health Literacy

SkillsProblem Solving

Collaboration

Analytical thinking

Communication

Finding and Evaluating Information

Creating and Innovating

ToolsNewspapers, books, spreadsheets, graphing calculators, computers, internet resources, websites, databases, digital libraries, television, observational and measurement tools, videos, DVD’s, CD’s, telecommunication, word processing, presentation tools, smart boards, GPS, probes, manipulatives, geometry tools, digital cameras, laptops, multimedia, scanners, video equipment, digital recorders,mp3 technology, cell phones……

21st Century Skills

Do teachers have to be tech savvy?Learning and Innovation SkillsInformation, Media and Technology Skills

Life and Career Skills

What is a blog?

What is a

Blogs have one standard characteristic, however: the posting.

Blog postings are text entries, similar to a diary or journal, which include a posting date and may include comments by people other than the author, photos, links, or other digital media.

BLOG TALK

Blogger: any contributor to a blog

Blogging: the processes of creating or maintaining a blog

multi-Blog: an online "conversation" taking place between several blogs

Post: Creating a comment or replying to another’s comments

Moderate: The ability of the blog creator to control who can post and or what can be posted

Educational Benefits of Blogs

In addition to providing teachers with an excellent tool for communicating with students, there are numerous educational benefits of blogs.

Highly motivating to students, especially those who otherwise might not become participants in classrooms.

Excellent opportunities for students to read and write.

Effective forums for collaboration and discussion. Powerful tools to enable us to scaffold learning or

mentoring to occur.

Some examples:

A traditional Educational “Web Log”

Busy Cook Blog

Financial Blog

Forrester’s Consumer Forum (Forum Blog)

Software Marketing Resource

Webmaster World Forum

Why Blogs?

Students write better when they have a real audience

Promote open dialog where students share knowledge and reflect on a topic

Engaging Interactive Meet Students “Where they live” ELL students Writing Across content areas

Blog Applications Elementary School Publishing

http://www.grandviewlibrary.org/fold/grandviewnews.aspx

Journals http://sdstat21.edublogs.org/ Teachers communicate with parents Daily Chronicles of classroom Community Activism http://montrose.communityblogs.us/

What is a wiki?

What is a Wiki?

Essentially a dynamic, collectively authored set of web pages.

Invented in 1995 by Ward Cunningham to facilitate online collaboration about programming and design best practices.

Evolved by the early 2000’s into a way to facilitate all kinds of online collaboration.

Wiki – Wikipedia Definition

A wiki (according to Ward Cunningham) is a type of website that allows users to add and edit content and is especially suited for constructive collaborative authoring.

In essence, a wiki is a simplification of the process of creating HTML pages combined with a system that records each individual change that occurs over time, so that at any time, a page can be reverted to any of its previous states.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

http://burkso2.wikispaces.com/PAC442B

How the Wiki Got Its Name

Wiki is the Hawaiian word meaning “quick”, “fast”, or “to hasten”.

Wiki-Wiki is the name of the bus line in the Honolulu International Airport.

Ward Cunninghamca. 2004

How the Wiki Got Its Name

How the Wiki Got Its Name

“Wiki-wiki to the beach.” - Elvis Presley (as Chad Gates) in the movie Blue Hawaii (1961). The line was said with a snap of the fingers.

More about Wikis

Wiki (according to UIC Prof. Steve Jones) Web-based Interactive Kollaborative (collaborative) Iterative

Wiki is sometimes interpreted as the backronym for “What I Know Is”, which describes the knowledge contribution, storage and exchange function.

What Can You Do With a Wiki?

Easily create and edit web pages, including styled text, hyperlinks, pictures, audio, video, etc.

Easy for a group to collaborate on creating online documents

Obstacles to Adoption

Wikis are usually open to anyone, and “if anyone can edit my text, anyone can ruin my text” (not so, since changes are logged, authors are notified, pages are easily restored – no challenge to hackers).

Authority is unclear – who “owns” a collaborative document?

Wiki openness is at odds with typical work habits

Wikipedia

Wikipedia – “A multilingual, Web-based,  free-content encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers …(with) editions in over 180 languages. According to Hitwise, an online measurement company, Wikipedia is the most popular reference site on the Internet.”

http://www.wikipedia.org/

Collaborative Authoring

Esquire article about Wikipedia Written collaboratively using Wikipedia The article was edited 224 times in the

first 24 hours after it was first posted, and another 149 times in the next 24 hours.

The final draft, which was locked on Sept. 23 to protect it from further edits, reflects the efforts of the many users who worked on it.

Jon Udell Screencast

Heavy Metal Umlaut in Wikipedia (ö, ü)

“The 8.5-minute screencast turns the change history of this Wiki page into a movie, scrolls forward and backward along the timeline of the document, and follows the development of several motifs.”

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/01/22.htmlhttp://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html

Wikipedia vs. Britannica

AP article on CNN website

Why a Wiki? Collaborative Authoring Tool (21st

Century Skills) Web Based, can be accessed from

anywhere with an Internet Connection (Web 2.0)

May be student directed or teacher directed

Peer editing and writing ePortfolios

Wiki Applications Collaborative Storytelling

http://terrythetennisball.wikispaces.com/ Kids Teaching Supplemental Information

http://misterhale.wikispaces.com/INTE http://cwasse.wikispaces.com/4TH+%26

To Blog or To Wiki?

Writing Process: Blog Reflective Personal Can be edited by others

Collaborative Writing: Wiki Peer Revew Teams or Groups

Changes are tracked

NETs and SD Technology Standards

Safety and PrivacyCreate and adhere to school technology policy

Review the ENTIRE policy with staff, students, and parents

Teach ethical and legal behavior for social software use (Digital Citizenship)

Resources:

The What, Why, and How of Wikis

Prof. Burks Oakley II, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs

Director, University of Illinois Online

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of Illinois

January 2006

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