WIKI and BLOGS

Research indicates that writing in the target language increases comprehension and fluency. As such, I am looking for ways to have my students write more using the internet. My problem is that I cannot decide whether a wiki or a blog would be the best place. I am going to give them several broad topics to write about, they will write and I'll correct errors. They will then edit their pieces. Would a wiki suffice or would a log be better. The key ingredient here is going to be the revision.
Any thoughts? Ideas or other help suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Tags: Spanish, blogs, wikis, writing

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Permalink Reply by Matt Wiseley on January 2, 2009 at 11:01am

Fred,

I would lean more towards using a wiki for a few reasons: 1) Wikis maintain version histories and make it easy to see what's changed between versions. 2) Wikis are more free-flowing, allowing students to organize written pieces into multiple pages as needed - blog posts are typically forced into a monolithic page. 3) Wikis will make it easier to integrate contributions of many students into a single site, whereas most blogs are geared towards a single contributor and would make you have to visit a different site for each student.

Hope that helps!
Matt

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on January 2, 2009 at 1:24pm

Both are good in my opinion. I think the blog format allows users to focus more on the writing than formatting etc.

WordPress now has revision control like most wikis.

Familiarize yourself with both as a writer to help you decide.

Steve

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on January 2, 2009 at 2:42pm

Wikis or Google Docs would be the best for revisions, we've used both with 4-6. Google Docs allows for teacher revisions (in different color), all of the docs are sent back and forth through email though. If you decide on a wiki, I'd set everything up ahead of time so each kid has his own page. We've done wikis mainly for research or to hold stuff before it goes on our website, you can see them here (bottom of list).