Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Collaborating with a Wiki?

One of the reasons that this "blog" exists is because "Blogger.com" freely provides space on the web for me to publish my thoughts, ideas and inspirations. Blogs are a wonderful part of the "Web 2.0" -- social technology!

Blogs can....
1. give you and/or your students a "voice" in global conversations
2. be tracked or "subscribed" to using RSS technology (RSS = Really Simple Syndication). (look for my RSS icon on the left)

Your thoughts and ideas can be "viewed at will" using a subscription manager (an aggregator) such as Bloglines.com which can be used to view all of your favorite blogs on one page. Imagine students publishing their thoughts and ideas, which you then "subscribe to" and view all of their entries in one "organized" space. (Click the Bloglines icon on the left to add this blog to your subscriptions!)

Another feature of a blog is that, often, your subscribers or visitors are able to provide feedback by leaving a comment about what you have written. So, a blog is much more than a webpage -- it becomes a tool for "conversation."

Hmmm.... let's think about ways to extend this conversation. Suppose your visitors could go beyond commenting on the thoughts in your blog, and re-write what you have written! Enter the world of wikis!

A wiki could be thought of as a virtual sandbox on the web. I draw in the sand, and you come along and add to my creation, enhancing my work with your talents! You can experiment or launch a wiki page using PBwiki. Their tagline is, “PBwiki makes creating a wiki as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich”.

Visit PBwiki.com to set up a PBwiki -- it's free and takes only 10 seconds.

Go forth and play in the sand!

No comments:

Post a Comment