May 22 2009
wiki blogs forums and other e-communication
Well, after spending days on a wiki thinking about learning activities I feel I am able to share my thoughts on these new developments in the area of e-communication. Ahhhhhhh and more ahhhhhh!!!
Lets start with the wiki … I thought that wikis were going to be as easy to use as word type documents where I am so familiar with their workings that I can jump from here to there back to some other spot retaining font style and text size – well not in a wiki – what a cumbersome experience it was.
It is extremely frustrating to develop a wiki within the wiki as you cannot perform all desired text functions within the edit function – for example – you can’t cut and paste and if you drag some text it then does not allow you to change it and it often changes its style. So the best option is to constantly travel between the completed page and the edit function. Why have they left out the spelling check function – or was it that I did not find it? and what happened to undo? – extremely handy tool when writing long pieces of text.
So I would suggest to the developers of wikis to make them a lot more user friendly so that someone like me, after spending days working on creating some knowledge, could feel inspired to return to a wiki with enthusiasm. If I reflect on my experience of working on wiki I struggle past the benefit that a group of people can work on it and keep track of changes – something I have done with word documents for a long time with good version control. There is potential there but unless they are made much more user friendly then I can only see much frustration for its users. I would like to think that I stand to be corrected.
Now to blogs and particularly to blogs and forums – I think I have finally worked out the difference (thanks to my fellow learner in EMT1). As any adult learner my past experiences help me to learn about new things like e-communication tools like blogs and online-forums and so I can understand tnat blogs are like the old boxes that people used to stand on boxes in the park like the Domain or Centennial Park or Hyde Park in London to make statements of their views on the world, like:
Like making comments on soap boxes there is no expectation of a response, instead one makes a statement about one’s views regardless of what others may think.
Online forums on the other hand are more about dialogue – they are conversations started by/someone who does expect a response so as to discuss the issue/idea being proposed.
Like Mason and Rennie (2008) I think that having blogs and forums in the one community or online learning site is confusing for members and there should be a clear explanation of the difference to encourage use of the technology appropriately. I have experiences this confusion on a Ning community where I am a member and as there is a lack of clarity one has to look in many places to find the right discussion.
Perhaps there is a need for assuming less knowledge about these various e-communication platforms and more clarity provided about their purpose and use so that online travellers can feel more confident in the online world.
Reference
Mason, R and Rennie, F., 2008, E-Learning and Social Networking handbook: resources for higher education, Routledge, London.
