Blogs v. Wikis

The new media is changing the way how we receive information. Blogs and wikis have become very popular on the Internet and both are very useful tools because people are able to express themselves and share their opinions.

A blog is an on line journal where bloggers maintain ongoing posts about their lives and the world around them. People write about topics that interest them and comment freely on everyday news. According to Melissa Gerry’s article, “Celebrity Blogs: The Impact of New Media,” blogs have become more popular and it was estimated that more than 7% of Internet users had created a blog and more than 30 million people look at them on a regular basis. Wikipedia.com defines a wiki as a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of Interlinked web pages via a web browser. Basically, on a wiki users can edit and add content on a wiki page.

Blogs and wikis are similar because both are a way of communicating. Blogs are more opinionated than wikis because wikis are a collaboration of facts by different individuals. Blogs and wikis both allow users to edit pages and leave their comments on the Internet. A blog is similar to a journal where a person can talk about anything, while a wiki is website that allows its users to collaborate and edit contents on that page. Blogs can also be used for collaboration. One example is our class blogs. The Blogroll that we added to our blogs allows the entire class to connect with each other and comment on each other’s blogs. Blogs are organized chronologically and wikis are organized by content.

A wiki that has not been created yet is wiki page only for student notes. Students would be able to collaborate all their class notes into one big study sheet on a wiki. Students and instructor can add/edit as they please. This would be great because if a student misses a class, they can refer to the notes on the wiki page to catch up.