Blogs and Wikis in Education

Blogs and wikis are everywhere. Doing a simple search for "educational blogs/wikis" brings up thousands of results. Most of these results are either the same sites, or somehow connect all together. The result is a massive collection of educational resources that are in a way all linked together. It truly is amazing how much information is out there.

There are a few interesting classroom uses for blogs and wikis in the classroom today that I would like to incorporate in my classes. Blogs and wikis as a place for student and teacher reflection is a big one for me. Allowing students the forum to write down their thoughts and feelings about a subject and either recieve feedback from peers or read and comment on other's thoughts seems like such a great tool for learning. After all, learning from your peers is one of the best ways to form true understanding of material. Wikis can also be a great place for teachers to personalize with their students. Wikis allow students and teachers to post photos, homework, ideas, comments, etc. They are basically one giant collection of thoughts and ideas, which is another great way to get to know teacher and student. Blogs and wikis also offer the ability to add gadgets and features that make learning really interactive and fun. This is a great way to keep the students interested in the material and the blog/wiki.

RSS readers and aggregators are another option for teachers to use in the classroom. These are programs that can be downloaded from the web and significantly reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates and news. These provide a consolidated view of news headlines, blog posts, podcasts, etc. These would obviously help students stay up to date with both local and world-wide news, connecting them to the outside world. These would also create a tremendous flow of new daily knowledge for the students. Even if it isn't directly related to the material, they will be learning something new every day that connects to the real world. They might also end up using this technology outside of the classroom for their own interests as well. This is a simple step, but an important one in getting students to involve the classroom with their own lives.

The pros of blogs and wikis are obvious, as you can read from the above paragraphs. However, there could be some drawbacks. For one, all students probably don't have computers at home. This would make it hard to make the entire class web based. Also, there are so many options and so much information out there that it might be overwhelming for teachers to get started with. How do you find exactly what you want?

No matter what, in today's technology driven society, blogs and wikis will continue to emerge as great educational tools for teachers. I personally think they would be great resources in my future classes.