Blog That Wiki…
Encouraging Student On-Line Participation
Rich Di Dio
Math/Comp Sci, La Salle
On-Line Learning @ La Salle, January 27, 2007
Today….
Today
- Blogs &Wikis: What and Why
- Blogging & Student Journals
- Course wikis & collaborative projects
- Packages/platforms for implementation
Why Blogs & Wikis?
- Flexibility & Ease of Use – for instructor and students
- Use as single online solution or as complement to
a CMS (course management system)
- Many free sources!
- New types of assignments & projects
- Automatic entry in blogosphere & wikiville
- Social networking/bookmarking/knowledge building
Blogs
- Weblog: web diary
- Brief facts/opinions/esoterica -> essays -> research papers
- Private or Public
- 0-60 million…since 1996
- Specialized search engines: technorati, IceRocket,BlogLines
Blog Benefits
- Easily-maintained/managed web site
- Ideal for quick posting
- Easy editing
- Built-in navigation
- Multiple access types: read, comment, post, manage
- Group blogs easy to set up
- Automatic archiving by date and category
- Comments attached to each post
Example: HON462 - Chaos and Fractals
- Seminar/computer exploration course
- Personal journal used since 1991
- Switch to course blog in F2005
- Personal/open to all
- Students are blog members: top-level posts + comments
- Successful because
- Ease of use
- Cool graphics
- Pride in ownership
- The blog…| FractaLog
Blog Providers
► Blogger (google)
www.blogger.com
► WordPress
wordpress.org
► MoveableType
www.movabletype.org
► Squarespace ($)
www.squarespace.com
Wikis
► “On the Fly” websites
► Visitors can easily add, edit, remove, content
► Multiple access permissions
► Keeps previous document versions
► COMPARE any two documents
► Easy of interaction and operation…effective tool for mass collaborative authoring
WIKIs..
► Front end wiki: courses & resources
didio.wikidot.com
► Collaboration
PA Governor’s Commision – Science Standards in Physics physbenchmarks.pbwiki.com
► Program wiki
ISBT wiki
WIKI Providers
► Peanut Butter wiki
www.pbwiki.com
► Wikispaces
www.wikispaces.com
► Wikidot www.wikidot.com
