Cleveland-Marshall College of Law

Blogs and Wikis as Course Pages

Why Use Blogs or Wikis for Course Pages?

  • Allows for interactive communication, unlike a plain web page
  • The students learn software they may use again in their careers
  • Not associated with the Lexis or WL brands
  • Unlike TWEN, the documents appear right on the page - you do not need to click to get to them
  • Ease of use
 

Blogs:

Example: Legislation Course at Moritz College of Law (created with Typepad)

What is a Blog? A diary of posts in chronological order. It is on an RSS feed, so that new posts will be sent to your RSS reader. Blogs may allow or disallow comments.

Blogs can post all course documents and organize by tabs, allows students to comment on posts, or post themselves, and can be delivered to you via an RSS feed or email.

RSS Readers -

Example of a Blog with Tabs: Entertainment Law, Randazza (created with WordPress)

More Examples of Blogs as Course Pages

Software for Creating Blogs:

 

 

Advantages of Blogs Disadvantages of Blogs
  • Interactive Discussion: Students can write or comment on blog posts.
  • Flexibility of Design: Little flexibility in overall design
  • Notification of Activity: via RSS or Email
  • Fancy Features: Lacks the fancy features of TWEN and Lexis - live chat*, automatic legal news*, gradebooks, quizzes, email list, signup sheets etc.
  • Organization: Able to create categories and tabs to organize information
  • Tracking Users: Can not tell whether a particular student has viewed, unless they write something, unlike TWEN, Lexis
  • Ease of Use: Somewhat of a learning curve, but really pretty easy
  • Collaboration: Can not collaboratively write and edit documents.
  • Privacy: Can restrict only to the class members
 
  • Anonymity: Could have anonymous posts if use pseudonyms. But has to be either all anonymous or all with names, unlike TWEN.
 
  • Integration of Info Types: Can contain documents, links, images, audio and video, all integrated together
 
  • Brand Identification: Not attached to the Lexis or Westlaw brand
 

*May be possible to rig up something

 

Wikis:

Example: L504 Fall 2008 Aitken (created with Wetpaint)

What is a Wiki? A wiki allows multiple editors to work remotely on a web page. The wiki shows who made edits and when. The wiki may have email updates, informing editors when something has been changed on the page. Some wikis offer a discussion forum

Why Use a Wiki?

  • Interactive communication via bulletin boards
  • Specifically designed for collaborative document creation
  • Show the edits made, and who made them
  • Email alerts notify of changes
  • Design flexibility
Advantages of Wikis Disadvantages of Wikis
  • Collaboration: Can collaboratively edit documents.
  • Fancy Features: Lacks some of the fancy features of TWEN and Lexis - live chat*, automatic legal news*, gradebooks, quizzes, email list etc.
  • Interactive Discussion: Has a discussion forum.
  • Tracking Users: Can not tell whether a particular student has viewed, unless they write something, unlike TWEN, Lexis
  • Organization: Can create separate pages for different topics, and subpages underneath those. Can assign workspace to a group
  • Flexibility of Design: More flexible in design than a blog or TWEN page, but not as flexible as a regular web page.
  • Fancy Features: Has some of the same features as TWEN/Lexis, which blogs do not have: Sign-up Sheet, Calendar
  • Ease of Use: A learning curve, but really pretty easy.
  • Anonymity: Students could sign up for the service using pseudonyms, making questions anonymous. But has to be all anonymous or all with names.
 
  • Notification of Activity: Can be notified by email if a page changes
 
  • Privacy: Can restrict only to class members
 
  • Brand Identification: Not attached to the Lexis or Westlaw brand
 
  • Integration of Info Types: Can contain documents, links, images, audio and video, all integrated together
 

*May be possible to rig up something - I had difficulty adding widgets to the Wetpaint Wiki.

links checked 9/09 (aeb)


Cleveland-Marshall College of Law 2121 Euclid Avenue, LB 138, Cleveland, Ohio 44115