Blog vs. Wiki
Blog and Wiki have a lot of similarities and differences if we look at them closely. Blog usually has only one person who creates and takes care the blog. A lot of bloggers make good living by posting their stories. A lot of them talk about travel, foods and entertainments. They share their opinions and feeling toward those topics, and a lot of people love to read them and subscribe to follow their stories. Wiki is more informal, and it is created by numerous people who post commends, pictures and videos. A lot of people use wiki as a tool to collaborate and communicate to each others. For instance, students can create a Wiki for the class. By doing so, they share what they have learned, the questions they have, or work in a project together. A lot of people would prefer Wiki than Blog if they want to communicate and collaborate.
Nevertheless, people can also collaborate in the blog. For example, according to the article "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid" by Michael Wilson, it explicitly mentions how bloggers talk about what they see in their neighborhoods. Eventually, it leads to drug raid and successfully arrests five people. People complain and talk about the issues they see, and it might leads to solution.
On the other hand, Wiki has influenced people all over the world. According to "Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People" by Noam Cohen, it mentions Wikipedia is one of the 10 most popular sites on the web, and roughly 60 million Americans visit it every month. Everyone can post commands on Wikipedia, so some of the information can be false and incorrect. However, a lot of experts also post historical facts and events on Wikipedia. We can check their accuracy and reliability by examining their sources. Joseph Reagle once said, "Wikipedia now has the ability to alter the world that it attempts to document." It's definitely true, and I believe a lot of students have looked at Wikipedia to learn something. Moreover, article "More on How to Build Your Own Wikipedia" by Margaret Locher, saying that "Business, schools and government agencies, are waking up to the benefit of wikis." Wiki is a good example of Web 2.0. The main purpose of Web 2.0 is to build collaboration and communication, and Wiki has successfully reached that goal. Business also uses wiki as a way to do marketing. Therefore, wiki has a lot of advantageous to the world.
People already use Wiki for numerous purposes. It is difficult to think a new use of Wiki that has not been done yet. But, I think it will be interesting if college students use Wiki as a platform to talk about class and professors. Students can feel free to shout loud their feeling, opinions and suggestions.
Work Cited:
Wiki While You Work; The technology popularized by Wikipedia can help companies gather and
manage their own collective knowledge. Here's how to get started by Margaret Locher. CIO,
May 1, 2008. Vol. 21, Iss. 14.
"Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People" by Noam Cohen, The New York Times, August
24, 2009.
Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid By MICHAEL WILSON The New York Times June 26,
2008
I think your idea to use Wikis as a platform for college students to talk about their professors is a grand idea! I know Rate My Professor is still a thing, but I feel like your idea can branch out to high school teachers and middle school teachers as well. I know when I was in middle school and high school I never had a platform to learn more about my future teachers. I had to rely on either positive or negative word-of-mouth, and back at the time, I wasn't too sociable, so it was difficult to get that kind of stuff without hoping someone was coincidentally gossiping about said teacher.
ReplyDeleteI think creating a Wiki for rating teachers would be a good idea - and it should have a similar sort of format as Rate My Professor, where it gives details as to what to expect in the class and what materials you'll need and what they think about the teacher themselves.