Blogs are mainly used as sort of an online journal- entries are dated and listed chronologically. After the entries are posted, people can comment on any entry in the blog. These entries are also posted chronologically, with information to identify the commenter. The blog owner may decide which comments to keep or remove from the blog, if desired. This would be a great way to establish contact with parents of students. Even if a parent isn't likely to use email or communicate online, finding a blog is simple enough with limited instruction; and then the parent can at least be kept up to date on classroom happenings if he or she desires. I have become familiar with Google's blog site Blogger (obviously), because I have used it to blog for several different occasions now. But I am not really familiar with any other type of blogging system...there may be one better suited for classroom use.
Similar to blogs, wikis also include a collaborative element that is available to anyone. Posts can be edited or modified by readers. I'm not sure if this one would be the most ideal for communication like a blog, but I could see students using a wiki as a workplace for group assignments. I think one person would be in charge of making sure important content doesn't get erased, but everyone in the group could add information as they wanted to share it. This tool is the least familiar to me, because I have never really participated in a wiki- as far as editing myself. I occasionally visit Wikipedia to browse random information, but I'm sure there are still more functions of wikis that I need to explore to fully appreciate.
Web-based word processors don't really mix up the document world any more than their collaborative aspect also. However, the collaborative features of documents shared on these word processors happen in real time- meaning one student typing in a document will see if another student is typing also, who that student is, and what that student is typing. All these editing processes are also tracked by the word processor itself, just in case someone (like a teacher) needs to monitor some of the content. Again, this feature would be great for group projects, or even creative writing. Any student sharing the document can watch the story unfold, and add in their own ideas whenever he needs or wants to. I knew these possibilities existed before my experience with them in this class; because a student in my latest field experience placement used GoogleDocs to take class notes on a netbook. Before that, I really just didn't know these tools were out there. Now I do, so I doubt I'll forget it anytime soon! :)
That's good! Nicely done. Thanks! :-)
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