Wikiing (vb.) Blogging Collaboratively

Yes I did just invent a new word for the title of this post. However, this novel verb is appropriate because using wikis is a very action-oriented process. Every person who is allowed to collaborate on a wiki has the power to add new ideas, elements, and pages or edit those statements that already exist. Aside from Google Docs, it is the best technology to use for collaboration because of the ease of allowing everyone in a group to contribute their own work, thoughts, and perspectives in a place where everyone else can immediately see them at their own convenience while still keeping the whole creation organized together. It allows group members to see both individual contributions and the sum of all their work without minimal effort to switch between those two views. This is what makes it better for groups to use than a standard website, which can only be edited by the creator. Even if all group members are allowed to have the role of "creator," that would only allow one person to edit it at a time, making it less convenient than a wiki. I had never thought about it before, but when I have group projects in my classroom that requires a presentation of results, I will at some point have students use a wiki to take advantage of the ease of collaboration. A wiki has the same advantages for group work over a blog because a blog is not a place where everyone is a equal contributor of knowledge. The blog may have significant interaction and conversation in its comments, but the blogger still had the power to solely determine the initial intent and content of any post. However, the fact that a wiki is so useful for group work also makes its uses more limited. In any context where students are creating presentations of knowledge that are primarily or completely controlled by one student, I would encourage them to use blogs or other websites instead because I would want the creator to have personal control over their work and have it safe from being edited by others without them even knowing. Even in a situation where students are required to provide feedback and editing for other students' projects, I would have the students use a blog or standard website instead in order for each student to maintain their own autonomy over their creation. Here is a screen shot of the wiki I made for this class, a task that I think secondary students would be able to do based on many topics in social studies: