Blogs Vs Wikis

Blogs and wikis seem very similiar to anybody, but they have a few different features to them that make them differ. So to distinguish the two from each other we need to know what is a blog and a wiki?

A wiki is described as an emergent voice - It's an agglomeration of the input of the community of users who are interested in the content being managed (Cincom Smalltalk Wiki, 2010). A blog however is considered as a personal voice (Cincom Smalltalk Wiki, 2010) - The author has complete control on the topics, the editing and the main focus of the blog.Wikis are a great way to share, change and edit other's ideas through out the whole article. Blogs can only be commented on giving ideas to the author of the page. With the sharing advantage of wikis, students wil be able to work collaboratively linking their ideas and thoughts onto one page.

Also a wiki is there forever! This is important! While blogs are great for sharing thoughts and personal experiences, they are more ephemeral (Cincom Smalltalk Wiki, 2010). They need to be updated or the information will be lost. With wiki there is no need to panic about losing your work and effort.With this feature as an advantage students will be able to look back through assignments and information as it will always be there. However saying that blogs are great to introduce new topics and discussions to others and getting opinions.

So which is better Wikis or blogs?None are better then the other because it all depends on the reason chosen to use a wiki or blog. Just a little reminder with blogs though: It's very easy to start a blog, It's much more difficult to sustain one (Cincom Smalltalk Wiki, 2010)

Reference

Cincom Smalltalk Wiki. (2010). The difference between a wiki and a blog, Retrieved November 12, 2010, from http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/cincom/files/wikis-and-blogs.pdf