Wikis+and+Blogs

=Wikis and Blogs= (submitted by Amy Ojserkis)

Definition
Wikis, Wiccans and Blogs...fun words you've probably heard bantered about. Yes, one of these is certainly NOT like the others, they do share some similarities. While Wiccans brew magic potions and conjure up numerous stereotypes about "Bewitched," Wikis and Blogs have the same awesome power to transform your teaching and learning!

WEBLOGS - Blogs, as they are known, are easily created, easily updateable websites. Blogs are the most widely adopted tool of the Read/Write web (Richardson) and have been called **THE** "killer apps" for librarians and educators (Valenza). Think of a place on the WWW where we can all meet, read, and write (Richardson) and you have dipped into a blog. Blogs function as powerful, interactive tools, encouraging you and your students to collaborate, debate, share, think, reflect, communicate with written words, images, and multimedia.

WIKIS - The word //wiki// is a short form of the Hawaiian, //wiki-wiki//, which means "quick." The first wiki was created in 1995, as an easy authoring tool that would spur people to publish. The key word here is "easy," because a wiki is a collaborative webspace where anyone can add content that has already been published (Richardson). Wikis differ from Blogs, as wikis invite contributors to edit / revise already __published__ work, such as textbooks or encyclopedia articles (see [|Wikipedia).] One of the great things about Wikis is that you can track the history of the Wiki and see who has made changes. Author's can also comment on why they added or changed the Wiki.

Related Topics
Read/Write Web - Web 2.0 - Wikipedia

Links
[|The Write Weblog] Springfield School Reading Wiki