[Web4lib] Wikis vs blogs

[Will Kurt]

Here's my 2cents.

Blogs are excellent when:
The content is very linear in nature and static.
The information becomes less relevant with time.
Your intention is to broadcast the writings of a few authors to a 
much larger number of less interactive readers.

Wikis are better when:
The content branches, and is more dynamic
The value of the information is persistent over time
Your intention is to facilitate collaboration and communication among 
a group, and the contributor/audience line is more blurred.

Also are far as Wikis go you don't have to worry about students 
erasing things since almost all wiki platforms that I've worked with 
keep an extensive history of all changes made to a page.

For blogs Wordpress is pretty much the standard, although Movable 
Type seems to be gaining some ground.

For Wikis I've administered several MediaWiki and PmWiki 
installations, MediaWiki is great, and very powerful but can be more 
overhead and time to configure it correctly, PmWiki is simpler but 
has less flexibility.
MediaWiki also has pretty extensive permissions settings (although 
customizing them can take a little work) so you can open up or lock 
down the wiki as much as you would like.

Also re: Cary's comment on forums. Forums are especially well suited 
to students trouble shooting for each other and helping each other 
out with specific questions, especially if the forum can send out 
email messages to the group.

A blog will most emulate the classroom experience, with major 
speaker, and a few active people commenting.  A wiki will resemble a 
large group project. A forum is the best way to facilitate quick Q&A 
among students.

--Will


At 11:51 AM 9/14/2007, Kristen Shea wrote:
>    Hello all,
>       Since everyone was extremely useful yesterday in answering my question
>about ESL programs. I greatly appreciate everyone taking time out of their
>busy schedules to respond.
>       My next thing that I'm trying to decide on is the best method of
>communicating with the students, besides e-mail. I was thinking that the
>wiki would be cool and innovative but I do worry about the students erasing
>comments or things like that. With a blog, I could make posts about various
>ideas/events but I'm not sure if that would necessarily initiate
>communication/talk with the student body. Does anyone have experience with
>either of these mediums? If so, what were the pros and cons of the different
>forms of media you used? Also, if you used wiki or blog, which software did
>you use?
>        Thank you very much! I would greatly appreciate everyone's imput!
>                        Kristen Shea
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