Blogs and Wikis

Tim Bornholtz

Purpose• Many new technologies are available on

the internet that enable people to publish and edit content without expensive tools or extreme technical knowledge

• Try to give an understanding of what they are and how they can be used in your organization

Digital Natives• “Our students have changed radically. Today’s

students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach”

• “Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet”- Prensky, 2001

• Students today think of digital resources as we would think of a book or telephone or television– Vital tools for getting information

The Rest of Us• That leaves the rest of us as “Digital

Immigrants”• We speak an outdated language (that of the

pre-digital age) and are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.”

• Why do we “dial” a number? There is no dial on a telephone

• Who among us prints documents to edit them• We bring someone to our computer to show them a

website instead of sending them the URL

Web 1.0• Static pages

• Needed a full-time “webmaster” to handle content changes

• Dynamic pages were still read only

• Needed a programmer to make any changes to dynamic pages

• 1989 - 2005

Web 2.0• People can create their own content.

• Transformative tools– Allowing anyone to do at home what used to

require professionals with expensive equipment.

• Convergence of media – Web, audio, video and more

• “Social Media” sites allow people to share opinions, experiences, and perspectives

Blogs wikis and podcasts (oh my)

Blog• Web journal or online diary

– Usually written by one person or a small group of people

– Most blogs provide commentary or news on one topic

– Articles usually link to other blogs or news items

– Readers are able to leave comments

– Some blogs integrate photos or video in addition to text articles

Blogs in Higher Ed• Opening up classroom walls

• Showing the wider world what is happening– Other students in class

– Parents

– Students in other classes

– Anyone with an internet connection

• Links to relevant articles• Provide a wider audience for students

Wikis• Site that can be written to by many of people

• Content is the priority, not design• Built in revision control• Why use a wiki

– online classroom pages that can be changed easily

– Put student's work on the web

• Examples– Wikiville – students collaborate with topics of interest

– Wikipedia – online encyclopedia

Uses of Wikis• Classroom discussion

– List assignments– Discuss curriculum

• Create a community around a specific topic– Community can pool their knowledge

• Developer tool – Software documentation– Maintain enhancement list– Track issues

Advantages of a Wiki

• Good for writing down quick ideas• Instantly collaborative without emailing

documents• Accessible from anywhere with a

browser• Every page revision is kept• Immediate and empowering – everyone

has a say

Disadvantages of a Wiki• People can see your half-formed, unsure, or

speculative ideas• Tendency for entries to be messy without

deliberate maintenance• If it is public you may be a target for spam• Need to be reasonably technical to use the

wiki-specific markup• Difficult to enforce content standards and

styles

RSS Feeds

• XML file for serving frequentlyupdated content

• Content publishers syndicatea feed

• Users subscribe to the feed

• Feed Readers periodically check the syndicated feed for updates

Podcasts

• A podcast is a media file, audio or video, delivered over the internet using syndicated feeds

• Made popular by Apple with iTunes• Can be played back on portable media

players or computers• Can also be integrated with text or PDFs

for a richer experience

Podcasts in Higher Ed

• Help students to connect to others

• Provide many different resources for listening

• Take a lesson with you and replay it as many times as you'd like

Podcasts in Higher Ed (cont)

• Teachers are starting to create lessons as podcasts

• Starting to incorporate student podcasts into the lessons.– Students will take greater care in their work

when there is an audience

• Get in contact with like-minded teachers who are also providing podcasts

Video• YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video• Anyone with a camera can create, edit,

and upload videos• Videos on many subjects available• Students can produce and upload their

own content• Able to easily integrate videos into blog

postings

Web 3.0 (end of presentation)• Virtual worlds such as Second Life• The people

who “live” therecreate most everything in the environment

Second Life– Many schools are using Second Life as an

environment for e-learning

– Creating online tools for learning within the virtual world

– Holding classes for distance learning– Second Life “allows students to experiment with

architectural design, to study monetary policy, and to do sociology research -- to name just a few educational uses -- in an enclosed, relatively risk-free environment” - Chronicle of Higher Education 8/30/2006

Questions?Tim Bornholtz

tim@bornholtz.com

(540) 446-8404

• References– Graham Stanley

http://blog-efl.blogspot.com/2006/11/blogs-wikis-podcasts-second-life.html

– Marc Prenskyhttp://marcprensky.com

– Chronicle of Higher Educationhttp://chronicle.com/daily/2006/08/2006083001t.htm