Week 8 -- Wiki's

Hello Bloggers!

    This week we learned about 2 specific topics to enlighten us more about the uses of the internet, along with the respect that you must have for the technological world. Firstly, we learned about the idea of digital rights and responsibilities which are very important in this technology growing world. The correct definition of this is being able to have all the rights to use the different types of digital technology, all by using the technology in an appropriate way (Ferris). There are 5 rights and six responsibilities which all have to do with having proper netiquette and being appropriate when online. Mostly the rights have to do with privacy and freedom which are also very important when considering respect in the technological world.

Ogre Wiki, 2011

    The second topic we learned was the use of wikis. A wiki is a site that can be freely used by anyone and is very easily accessible using a normal browser (Tangient, 2016). Wikis are very important in education because many students look at wikis for research projects and papers. The advantage with wikis is that many people can share their knowledge on one specific topic which means that researchers can collaborate on topics of interest (Tangient, 2016). The disadvantage that comes with this is that you never know if all the information is true as anyone can edit it if the webpage is not private. Within education, teachers use this tool as well for publishing, organizing, and sharing all types of valid information. A wiki is different than all the other tools we use for collaboration because it is a website that holds information that is “open” for editing. This means that we do not necessarily know if the page has been edited or not. On the other hand, blogs, Google Docs, and Evernote all are tools that educators post on with their knowledge and ideas on the topic. Therefore, we know that it is someone else’s knowledge as they are the author to their own blogs and no one else can change that. Personally, I prefer using blogs because then you know that it is information by one person/educator and not collaborative ideas from many people in which you do not know if the information is correct.

When I was in second year of University I had a project to complete that required me to create a wiki. I had to do this with 3 other group members and it was a great learning experience that had me collaborating with others in creating our own knowledgeable webpage. On my Personal Learning Network, I already had wiki under my tabs because I have personally used it before and thought it was a great tool!

Lastly, while looking through my feedly reader, I noticed an interesting website that talks about The Benefit (and Downside) of Eating Breakfast. Everyone has heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but many people do not know why! This website tells you all the reasons why breakfast is super good for you, but also the disadvantage to eating breakfast depending on your goal of your training outcome!

Thanks for reading this week, I hope you enjoyed it.