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Blogs and Wikis ...

There is very little difference between these two in features:

* Both are easy to set up

* Both are easy to customize

* Both are easy to update and add content

* Both allow you to add music, video, images and clipart

* Both have privacy settings of varying types

* Both can be solely or collaboratively owned

* Both allow for viewing/commenting access and selectability

* Both can be continuing projects or one-off mini-projects

* Both can be supremely basic or extremely fancy

However, in practice there are some distinct advantages of one vs. the other:

* Wikis are more like mini-websites, offering a large page and a navigation pane.

    There is scope for collaborative effort, as it can be a multi-page site or require a lot of information. 

    You can create "areas" within that page, but there is more large-scale layout to organize.

    Google Sites is something between a wiki and a website - it is offering the ease of Wiki creation

    (WYSIWYG, word-processing type editing with minimal "source code" need) and a lot of pre-set layouts. 

* Blogs are more like online journals, with editable areas and add-ins to personalize your information space.

   They are more likely to be the product of an individual, rather than a group effort as it's not easy to have multiple-user access 

   You can choose what kinds of information areas you want, but the main focus will be on chronologically-added

   entries. Usually, these are in reverse-chronological order (most recent first). Some sites give you an option to

   reverse this, but it's not common.

SAMPLER ... 

CHARACTER BLOG:

8th grade students had to create a blog for a character from a novel they read. (Task sheet/rubric here)

From Wendelin Van Draanen's Flipped: BrycieBoy          JulieBaker

 (something I learned from this: give the kids a heads-up that they are NOT to select movie pictures!)

From John Marsden's The Great Gatenby: AmazingKramer

From John Marsden's So Much to Tell You: LindellBlog  (also click on "posts"

BALLAD WIKI:

7th grade students created a page for a "modern ballad" they felt met the ballad criteria, as well as an original ballad they wrote about a current event.

This was a formative task - not "graded" per se - and more for their exploration of the subject and then sharing of their own work.

Wonderful Ballad Wiki                         sample student ballad - researched                               sample student ballad - original    

(sorry if these look a bit wonky - I have not renewed the upgrade, so some of the features no longer function)

GENERAL PLANNER ... 

You will need the students to

a) understand the topic of the blog/wiki

b) set up their blog or wiki site AND get access + link or invite to you

c) brainstorm & plan what they will generate for content

d) brainstorm, find and plan layout of theme, page features and layout

e) create the product

f) maintain or update the product (if this is a continuing thing) OR download/save/print out the product (if it is a one-off)

**Disclaimer: Where possible examples of our student work have been included and reasonable attempts to contact the creators of the presentations and documents included here have been made, for permission, when items have not been made available to the public at large. This wiki is a collaborative synthesis of available resources for educational purposes.**

LINKS ...

http://www.pbworks.com

http://www.blogger.com