Classroom+Discussion

In this session, ways that blogs and wikis can be use as learning and teaching tools are introduced. Both blog and wiki can be used as tools for writing and course website.

A blog is like an online journal that an individual owned. A large majority of its owners are individuals. Blog is special that entries are organized chronologically. Readers can always see the latest entry first.Its interactive mechanism allows readers to give feedback and response to the content. Hence, interaction between blog owner and readers is enhanced. Moreover,many blogs are RSS integrated that readers can subscribe to it and be informed whenever the blog is updated. For example, Yahoo Blog and wordpress blog.
 * __ Blog __**

Apart from recording daily life issues, blog can actually foster teaching and learning. It enhances reflection that it can support students'critical thinking and reflection as they write the blog. A learning community and an environment of collaborative learning can also be created. The blog can act as a course website and it will be the platform for the exchange of information among students;or among teacher and students.

One may compares blog with discussion forum as both of them enables social interaction. A blog is better than a discussion forum in the sense that it is owned by individuals while discussion is not. This individual ownership permits owners to control the content, presentation, organization and privacy of the blog. Concerning the language used in a blog for mearning purpose, it is less formal that it is better for emotional expressions. Thus,the content can be more authentic. In additon, discussion forum do not support RSS feed. One can only get e-mail notifications from discussion forum instead of getting updates from all subscribed websites together automatically. RSS feeds can be shared but a e-mail nitification cannot.

It seems that the advantages of blog outweighs that of discussion forum. Yet, when focusing on interaction pattern, a discussion forum maybe better that a blog. In a blog, interactive among readers and owner are limted whereas in a discussion forum, effective interaction is resulted. It is because there is a shared community space. A blog Owner is in more control as he/she can filter and delete comments. This leads to uneven participation of owner and readers. There is a distributed interaction as there is a lack of interaction between individuals'blogs. A community blog, e.g. a blog for the class, maybe needed to link up those distributed interaction. Moreover, threaded structure in a discussion forum makes the comments more coherent.

Actually, one should choose the appropriate technology based on his/her purpose. A blog is good for individual expression, sharing of personal stories, creating a social environment and enhancing social interaction. On the other hand, a discussion forum is good for group discussion and many-to-many dynamic discussion on surrounding topics.

As mentioned at the beginning, wiki can also be a tool of teaching and learning. It is good for collaborative writing and present final work. It involves the building of knowledge. When compared blog to wiki, blog is more individual and personal whereas wiki is collaborative and content-oriented. The most special thing about wiki is that it enables open editing that there can be mutliple ownership and authorship. It is a central space to access information. Contributors can always open new pages, modify structures and add in widgets to the wiki. There is another software, 'Google Document', which also permits collaborative work. For wiki, contributors can work on a number of pages instead of just one single page.Google Documents does not allow users to modify the structure and it has limited support of multimedia elements. Besides, one can trace the history of editing and convert the file back to particular version.
 * __ Wiki __**

To summarize, blog is more about the expression of personal feeling, discussion forum is for discussion and wiki works best for collaborative work which focus on products. Near the end of lesson, we have discussed some cases and needed to decide which tool to use:

Online resource centre: Wiki, as all students can contribute to it Essay after each week: Blog, as individual work is concerned Online sharing and discussion: Discussion forum Online Portfolio to gather useful information: Blog,as it is more like an individual work

There is no definitely answer for which tool to use. Yet, users should pay more attention on the tools' user-friendliness, expandability (ability to add in widgets and link to other resources), the ease to embed multimedia elements and the import/export features.

Here is a reminder of tools we have learnt to use: //Wikispaces// 1. We created a new account and opened a new wiki page 2. We tried inserting different types of content to the page by pressing the "Edit" button at the top right hand corner, after which a toolbar will be shown;

//To insert...// - **A. Images**: File > External Image(Tab) > Paste the target URL > Load > Save (Toolbar) - **B. Slideshows**: Widget > Slideshow > Choose a source provider > Paste the Embed > save > Save (Toolbar) - **C. Videos**: Widget > video > Choose a source provider > Paste the Embed > save > Save (Toolbar) - **D. RSS Feeds**: Widget > RSS Feed > Paste the target URL > Embed RSS Feed > Save (Toolbar) - **E. Voicethread/Delicious/Diigo:** Widget > Other HTML > Paste the target Embed/URL > Save > Save (Toolbar)


 * Alternatively, you may place widgets in the navigation section (e.g. Delicious) by clicking "Edit navigation" on the left hand section of the page