Best options for web 2.0 applications

Hi eevrybody

This is my first post here at Classroom 2.0.
I am very excited with this network because it convers exactly what I am investigating now.

I am planning several projects around Web 2.0. Now I am investigating which are the more appropriate tools.

And I have some doubts.

Wikis: wikispaces or pbwiki
I need to be able to setup private wikis.

Blogs: Blogger or Wordpress
In the future, I will need to migrate for outr own platform.

I appreciate to hear from you.

Best regards from Portugal

Tags: blogging, blogs, tools, wikis

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Permalink Reply by Dana Huff on May 2, 2007 at 6:38pm

Lino, I just recently posted about this, and perhaps it will help:

Blog Hosting Services for Educators
Wikis for Educators

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Permalink Reply by Lino Oliveira on May 3, 2007 at 4:47am

Thanks a lot, Skip and Dana.

I invite you to visit me here at Porto and to drink the port wine in the "real place". :-)

I will see the links proposed by Dana.

Regards

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on May 3, 2007 at 6:08am

Olá Lino!

Wikis?
Try wikidot. I'm taking a master degree at Universidade Aberta, in e-Learning Pedagogy and I'm studying Web 2.0 and learning contexts (Figueiredo), and I'm using it as a private wiki to communicate with my tutor. It offers 100MB for storage. It's not much but for text and some links it's good enough.

Blogs?
Here at my workplace our programmers are fans of wordpress, and we have it here in our servers. Take a look at our blog. I prefer wordpress too.

Um abraço de Leiria!

Best regards,

Nelson

Portugal

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Permalink Reply by Lino Oliveira on May 3, 2007 at 8:25am

Thanks, Nélson.
I will investigate wikidot soon.

Um abraço de Matosinhos, Portugal!

Regards.
Lino

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Permalink Reply by Sue R. on May 4, 2007 at 3:19pm

Hi, Glenn and Lino,

Blogger's banner has a drawback--it has a "next blog" random button on it, and when students click on it they may get to some very inappropriate sites! Luckily, Will Richardson posted about his attempts to remove the next blog button and a commenter (check out comment 8) had the solution. Hope that helps!

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Permalink Reply by James Dykstra on May 7, 2007 at 3:53pm

I'll second that. I've started using Wikidot.com for two projects I'm trying with my classes and I'm loving it. It's really easy. I'll happily share the URLs if you send me a message.

As for blogs, I'm a big fan of WordPress. The chief advantage for me is that with WordPress I've found a way to upload files and attach them to my posts. This means that I can attach assignments to my posts and absent students can download them from home. It means less hassle for me because I never have to keep extra copies for students who didn't make it to class.

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Permalink Reply by Glenn Moses on May 3, 2007 at 3:23pm

Hi, Lino. As to Wordpress or Blogger, I use both and it depends on your needs.

If you want something easy with no server side-install or database set up go with blogger. You can can have them host, but it'll cost you a banner at the top of the page (not a MySpace kind of banner, very small almost classy), or you can host it yourself by simply pointing the publishing setting to your host with no banner. I haven't run into anything with Blogger that I wanted to do that I couldn't do (group blogs for classes, moderate comments, etc.). I'm going to use this to create my high school's news paper next year.

I use Wordpress for my personal blog, because, well, I'm a geek. It let me play around with SQL on my server and graphic design and some other things things that fed my inner-geek. It also let me create a blog that met the validation requirements of XHTML Strict and nearly meets AAA of WCAG.

So, if you're just breaking things in, go with Blogger. If you're proud of your new XHTML shirt that came from A List Apart go with Wordpress.

If you need any help don't hesitate to ask. :)

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Permalink Reply by Sylvia Martinez on May 3, 2007 at 8:55pm

Welcome!

Yeah, I'd agree with all this - if you like the geeky end and want a tool that will grow up with you, Wordpress is the way to go.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on May 4, 2007 at 4:17am

Hi Lino
I guess a question is, what are you trying to do with folks in the Web 2.0 world? What do you hope teachers to accomplish?
If you know the possible outcome, then perhaps the tool will become clearer for you.

Good luck!

Kevin

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Permalink Reply by Lino Oliveira on May 4, 2007 at 5:15am

Thanks Everybody

I wil try to explain what I intent to do.

Now, we are using a Moodle platform to support classroom activities.
But some of the tools provided by Moodle are basic.
For example, Moodle version 1.6+ support blogs and wikis but there are not much user freindly at all.

So I decide to explore some web 2.0 tools to complement Moodle activities, incrementing online collaboration (we have a lot of diligent students), etc.

I plan to set up a server for blogs and wikis but at this time this is not possible so I decide to begin rigth now with "public" applications.

Because of your comments, I decide to go for Wordpress.com. In this way, it is simpler to migrate for the our own platform in the future.

With this projects in mind, I thought in using others tools: tagging, syndication, mashups, etc.

Regards,
Lino

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Permalink Reply by Alice Mercer on May 5, 2007 at 9:03pm

There is another blog possibility and that is edublogs.org which I use. It has no adds, and you can upgrade to a personal domain. I'm fond of it, because I teach elementary and I don't like the "next blog" feature in blogger. Also, it has word press themes which are, imho, much more elegant.