I was reading your views on blogs as personal and/or class tools and fully support the view that there must be hundreds of abandoned spaces out there! We do have to ask why bother!
I suspect in terms of blogs for learning, first of all the attributes of the tool itself need to be fit for purpose (eg your own use of the wikis and blogs for the webquest were your decisions. I have to say this is the first year that groups have defaulted to these collaborative tools rather than use the forum!). Yes, we're back to that word collaboration yet again:-)
Wikis clearly facilitate collaborative text construction in a way that blogs don't. The ease with which text is uploaded and reviewed is a definite attribute for creative projects, I feel. Maybe this is their strength and uses exploiting these features would seem to be logical. I do wonder if some wikis are more intuitive than others? I find myself reacting quite quickly to the 'look' of the tool and this can impact on my decision to make it a home for anything I do. You used different ones for your webquests - any thoughts on this, especially if that was your first encounter? I guess we could ask the same for most tools where we have choices, including blogs, but wikis seem to be a particular case in point:-)
Blogs clearly provide for discussion, but also seem to form a neat space for both sharing, archiving and display and I've seen various examples of them being used in this way. Along with the ability to tag entries, this seems to be again a specific set of attributes to act as a selling point.
This is a neat site that I explore with my UG class of primary school teaching assistants here in Manchester:-) In fact here are examples of blogs, podcasts, wikis all in one place - and in a primary learning context! Sandaig Primary school
What strikes me is there is no that much commenting and I felt this could be encouraged more (eg see the book review blog) but lots of 'display' - and clearly this can be seen by the children's parents too.
Here also is a nice example of Ning used in a global project around specific tasks that are aimed to make children more aware of others' voices around the world. Check thelink to the wiki from this main page for monthly tasks and uploaded projects Voices of the World
See what you think - oriented towards younger learners of course.
Diane
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I’ve been deliberating about the pros and cons of wikis and blogs this week, too. I’m setting up an informal course for some friends, four who live nearby and two who live 600 km away in Berlin. The participants nearby want to meet up once a month for conversation. To bridge the time gap and incorporate the “externals” I’ve decided to set up a wiki or a blog for asynchronous communication and exchange of materials and weekly half-hour synchronous skype sessions. I couldn’t decide whether a wiki or a blog would be more useful to the group. I must say, like Diane, I like the “tidiness” of most blogs I’ve seen. On the other hand, the wiki seems to offer more opportunities for collaborative learning. Besides Wetpaint, I’ve also been recommended http://www.wikispaces.com/. At a glance it seems fairly self-intuitive, but will have to take a closer look. Does anyone have any experience?
By the way, lots of activity on that Voices of the World wiki, but could only bear to look at those green links on a black background for a minute :).
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