Wiki Week

    I enjoyed making the wiki this week. It did take some getting use to and some things about it were not very "user friendly" but for the most part I enjoyed the learning process it involved. As for what advantages I see using wikis the first one would be being able to incorporate many different peoples opinion at one time to collaborate on whatever project the wiki involves. There can be instant results that people can see instantly not wait as they would using such things as email. They can be edited by members of the group, not just one person... that is nice too. It is also pretty easy to catch on to and students can get materials off a teachers wiki if need be easily. Now for the disadvantages; sometimes having so many people doing the editing may make the content seem disorganized and hard to get one certain stance on things. Another one is that if the teacher, student, or users of the wiki aren't using it to its fullest potential and to be a useful communication tool, it wont be worth the effort put into it.
     I think that our "digital native" students can learn from the wiki because it has the potential to engage the visual learners and encourage them to write on the computer rather than just with pen and paper,as they are use to growing up in this "digital native" generation.
    There are many web 2.0 technologies that are being used in the educational area such as; blogging, social media sites, and pod casting. With all the distance education classes in force and the need to meet the standards related to these classes... many of these tools are helpful. I would like to learn more about pod casting since I have a feeling that as an online teacher it will be a tool that I use often as well as blogging. I think that when students, even college level students feel they can put their words and thoughts into "paper" with no pressure the outcome is far greater than the pressure of putting it in "writing" for an assignment. Does that make sense?