Using Wiki to Communicate Information

Wiki is defined as a website that allows the creation and editing of interlinked web pages.  Wikis are mostly used for collaborative works.  It allows people to sign in and be invited to join groups to edit pages.  This could be a useful tool in schools and the work place, allowing multiple peoples ideas to be put in one place.  A good aspect of Wiki is that people can build on other people's ideas.  This means that the ideas on the page have been molded into a well thought through and well edited opinions or research.  Wiki is a tool that should be taken advantage of in schools and the work place to collaborate on ideas.  There is something out there though called WikiLeaks.  WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes confidential or private information it gets from anonymous news sources.  WikiLeaks has caught grief from government officials for releasing classified information that could have jeopardized national security.  In April of this last year they released a video of U.S soldiers killing Iraqi civilians and journalists.

Diigo

Diigo is a website that allows you to bookmark and tag pages on websites.This is a tool for researching.  It allows you to keep all your sources and information in the same place. Diigo stands for Digestion of Internet Information, Groups, and Other Stuff.  Not only does it keep all of your information in one place, but you can be a part of a group and share bookmarks with group members.  Using Diigo in the classroom helps keep students organized while doing projects, or in our case speeches.  Instead of having to try to find your information five different times to look up stuff for your speech, students can just go to Diigo and check their bookmarks and easily find the information they're looking for.  This saves time and effort and also makes researching ten times easier.

Communicating Digitally

Communicating digitally is part of American's daily lives.  It is extremely essential to the way we communicate at work, school, and in our home lives.  Facebook is currently the most popular way of communicating digitally, with more than 400 million users.  Students use technology on a daily basis outside of school to keep in touch with their peers.  This use should make using technology to communicate in the classroom second nature.  Most students have multiple email accounts, profiles on multiple social networking sites, and have used sites to talk with other people world wide.  Bringing digital communication tools in the classroom will hopefully bring education out of the stone age of chalk boards and books, and into the future of laptop based courses.  Instead of using books and written homework assignments, all homework done on computers and then emailed to teachers would be communicating digitally.  Maybe more students would be more interested in completing homework assignments since they will already be on their computer at home on a social network site.