Blog and Wiki

The Internet and Education


Until quite recently Silicon Valley and its innovations had little effect on teaching and learning. But with the rise of the Internet, information technology is now beginning to have much more influence on education. Two areas which are becoming more and more significant are ‘blogs’ and ‘wikis’.

The word ‘blog’ is short for ‘weblog’. A blog is an online diary or ‘blog’ of someone’s life, thoughts, or opinions. Anybody can create their own ‘blog’ and blogging is becoming extremely popular – type ‘blog’ into Google and you’ll get over 500 million results. For educational purposes, academics, teachers, and students create blogs as personal online study sites: places to work together and share information and ideas. Some universities even give their students and staff free space on a server to start their own blogs.

‘Wikis’ are websites where anyone can add content and make changes, so that the site becomes a group creation – ‘wiki’ stands for ‘What I Know Is’. These sites can be a valuable source of information and opinion for students, though the information may not be totally accurate – some academics refuse to use them. Perhaps the best-known wiki is the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, which has more than one million entries in over 100 languages. Wikipedia is working hard to make sure that its information is completely accurate, so students will be able to use it with confidence and there’s no doubt that it is an incredible resource.



Read the artic1e and find the answers to these questions.
1 Is information technology more or less important in education than before?

2 Where does the word 'blog' come from?

3 What is a 'blog'?

4 What are blogs used for at universities?

5 What does 'WIKI' mean?

6 Who puts the information on this wiki websites?

7 Why do students need to be careful if they use 'Wikis' when they study?

8 What is Wikipedia?







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1. More
2. blog is short for weblog
3. A blog is an online diary
4. For educational purposes
5. What I Know Is’
6. Anybody
7. the information may not be totally accurate
8. An online encyclopaedia.