When to use Wikis, Blogs or Fourms

From September 2006, I have moved this from my old blog on Moodle.

I have been listening to David Warlick\’s podcast on 1 to1 laptop programs where he is conducting a round table discussion on various Web 2.0 topics. He points out this information on when to use a Wiki, Blog or a Forum. I think his information is right on so I thought I would scribe it here. Of course you can just got to his podcast and download episode #67 and listen for yourself. It is about 7 minutes into the podcast.

Wikis: “Usually a small group of people working together to build a collaborative document that will help that small group of people”. Used to publish a collective of pages or material verses dated material which is how Blogs are constructed around a dated time line. Wikis are also easily formatted into a single page if needed. Wikis also have a history button so you can see what has been taking place since the wiki page was started and who is contributing to the continued creation of the content. If this is a class assignment, you can easily see how students are contributing. The creation of a “Digital Artifact” as one person says.

Blogs: They are a publishing event so it should represent the “best work” of the author. A more formal publishing event. Blogs are individual entries with comments. Useful for dated material with comments that will include time stamps with a more personal sharing aspect.

Forums/Discussions: These are used best for posing questions or getting feedback from students that will move a conversation forward. It is a conversational tone and not well formatted or sometimes well thought out.

Great descriptions on these technologies. Thanks David.

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