As stated by many others on the blackboard, there are many similarities between blogs and wikis as communication / collaborative models for sharing information. They both allow anyone with a web browser to publish content in an on line environment without knowledge of HTML, they both encourage others to contribute to the pool of information, both cover a broad range of topics - from news items to how to party with pet rocks, and both allow for the use of hyperlinking and referencing to back up information.
The differences between to two come down to (in my mind) the idea of ownership. A blog is owned by someone – whether it be a corporation or organisation or by a single person. As such the blog posts are written in a way that contains that entities knowledge and opinions. Others may comment on what is written but they may not edit the information directly. Comments may be ignored by the originating author or taken on board or merely deleted. The owner of the blog has control over the information that is presented.
In contrast to this Wikis are harder to control and not owned by any one particular person or organisation. Wikis merely present information, and organise it. Any one can start a new topic, or add to an existing one – therefore the information presented in wikis is constantly changing, history is always updating and never set in stone.
Wikipedia is one of the largest wikis and states that “The ideal Wikipedia article is balanced, neutral, and encyclopedic, containing notable verifiable knowledge” but this not always the case. There is nothing that prevents people from adding biased, non-neutral, unverifiable knowledge to this on line database, but there are people with vested interests in topics that will collaborate with each other, to try and verify information and improve its quality as seen in the article Wikipedia’s Rapid Reaction to Outburst During Obama Speech. Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia) encourages people to quality test wikipedia documents, and to fix errors (TEDGlobal 2006) in order to ultimately improve his product.
Overall I think Wikipedia changes the way we communicate, as it encourages us to be critical of the information we receive whether it be in on line or offline environments. Wikis on a whole also encourage us to work together to create and contribute to an ever growing pool of knowledge – to be active participants in learning, teaching and sharing knowledge, not just blind consumers of it.
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