Web 2.0: Blogs & Wikis, Adam Smith College

Web 2.0 –Blogs & Wikis An Introduction Carol Walker eLearning Advisor (Learning Technology) JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East

www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East

What’s it all about?

1995 Way back when…

Web 2.0 – The next phase

A content publishing system where entries are made over time. The most recent entry is at the top of the page. Similar in style to a journal. define:keyword e.g. define:blog TIP In Google What is a blog?

Anatomy of a Blog

Blog Title One entry – most recent at top Date stamped Each entry has short, concise title Can contain multimedia – images, video and audio Content – can link to other resources with hyperlinks Comments from your blog readers Readers can subscribe to your blog to get automatic updates

What’s out there?

Video Blog or Vlog

Photoblog

Podcast*

…

Personal

Travel

Political

Education

…

By Media Type By Genre * Doesn’t necessarily have to be a blog though

Why use a blog? A reflective diary A place to organise your thoughts A collaborative space A mechanism for sharing experiences A means of gaining feedback Your space on the web …

Communities

Computing

Construction

Fire and Rescue Service

Media Studies

Employability

Access to Life and Leisure

Duncan Gillespie & Robert Brown (Dumfries & Galloway College) “ Supporting the development of e-Portfolios has moved on significantly since involvement in the ISLE project. By using Web 2.0 technologies in a structured and simple way, we have developed staff and student skills, which will equip them for the future and add real value to the educational experience.” Template for ePortfolio

Intute: health & life sciences blog http://www.intute.ac.uk/healthandlifesciences/blog/

Glasgow School of Art – Library Blog http://gsaartdesign.blogspot.com/

Is it Complicated? No! All you do is fill in a form… … no programming skills required

Where do you find blogs? Technorati http://www.technorati.com Google http://blogsearch.google.com

Subscribing to a blog

RSS Readers – lots of options

Web-based – Bloglines , Google Reader

Analogy: subscribing to an rss feed can be likened to taking out a magazine subscription TIP

Daily?

Weekly?

Monthly?

Anonymous?

First Name?

Full Name?

Alias?

Some Things to Consider… 1. What is the purpose of your blog? 2. What about frequency, identitiy, visibility… FREQUENCY IDENTITY VISIBILITY

Private?

Public?

Blogs – Hands on Have a look at some of the examples Search for some blogs on the topic of your choice using one of the blog search engines Setting up a blog Part 1 Part 2 http://tinyurl.com/cawablogs

Setting up a blog blogger.com wordpress.com

Discussion - Uses

JISC Legal Information Service http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk JISC Legal is a free information service offering high quality legal information to further and higher education relating to the use of information and communications technologies. We run training events, provide publications, and offer an enquiry service. Legal Implications – Help

Legal Implications “ Basically for colleges and universities the data protection and other legal issues remain the same for an institution when using blogs, wiki's, podcasts etc as for other media.” “ It is up to universities and colleges to manage the risk as they have to do with other means of communication. Therefore for example Data Protection, AUPs, Copyright Policies, Staff contracts/policies/handbooks etc all have to be updated to ensure that it is understood that these 'new' media are included.” Source: JISC Legal

Source: JISC Legal Legal guide from Stanford University at http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/Resources/podcasting.htm Universities Legal Briefings at http://www.pinsentmasons.com/media/484810274.htm The relevant section is the Human Resources section - piece titled 'Blog off! - tackling the risks of blogging‘ For a look at what UK universities are doing see the following guidelines for students at : Warwick University http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/its/elab/services/webtools/blogs/terms University of Sunderland http://myblogs.sunderland.ac.uk/blogs/myblogs/acceptable_use_of_blogs/ Legal Implications – Help

http://www.web2rights.org.uk/ Web2Rights

http://www.vp.is.ed.ac.uk/ Guidelines for using external services

JISC infoNet – Social Software http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/social-software

Educause - 7 things you should know about… http://www.educause.edu/7495

Intute – virtual training suite

intute - vts: business studies (fe)‏

Wiki is defined as: “A type of web page designed so that its content can be edited by anyone who accesses it, using a simplified mark-up language.” Wikis – An Overview

Wiki examples

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org

Wiki selection tool

http://www.wikimatrix.org

Set up a free wiki

PB Wiki http://www.pbwiki.com

Example http://jiscrsc.pbwiki.com password: blogs3

Wet Paint http://www.wetpaint.com

Wiki pros and cons?

No programming skills required

Easy to update

One version of docs

…

Vandalism

Edit Wars

Ideas can become skewed over time

…

Pros Cons

pbwiki – access settings

wikis

Blogs vs Wikis Blog: It’s your content. No one can change it. Users can comment on your posts (content)* Wiki: Everyone can (potentially) add to or change the content *You can turn comments on or off ###!! ###!! ###!! ###!! Wiki

source: www.gapingvoid.com

Next Steps... ? ? ?