Blogs and Wikis Project

Blogs and wikis are changing the landscape of education all across the world. I see blogs and wikis as valuable tools and are the future of education. One of the most interesting aspects of blogs and wikis are that they allow teachers to communicate and share ideas. Teachers are the biggest plagerizers (in terms of ideas and lesson plans) in the world. As a teacher, I would be very excited to see what others are doing. Another interesting thing that blogs do in the classroom are that they keep things simple. They are an easy way of reminding your students of what assignments are due, what the next class lessons will be, and what materials they should study up on. Using a blog or wiki would be a simple way of keeping things "up to date." I also like how blogs are being used as communication tools for the students and teachers. Perhaps kids that are very shy would be more willing to participate on a blog than in the classroom.

RSS readers can save you a lot of time and frustration by summerizing information on blogs and helping you decide whether the information would be useful or not. In my classroom I would have students use these when they are looking for information but do not have a lot of time. A lot of time could be wasted reading stuff that is not useful. Having a summerized account would increase the amount of productive work time my students would get.

During this project I have found many pros for using blogs and wikis. One of the best is that it helps with teacher-student communication. Assignments, lessons, and other critical data can be placed on blogs and be retrievable by students at any time. I also have found that these online tools help develop students' (and teachers') technology skills. By using these blogs and wikis we become more comfortable with computers and the internet. Some of the cons involved with blogs and wikis are that poorly done, they can be very confusing. Students who don't have a lot of experience with blogs and wikis can become very confused if they are not done properly. Another con is that not all students have access to technology. You risk disenfranchizing some of your students if you rely too heavily on blogs and wikis.