The use of wikis when compared to blogs, tweets, and other social media trends

What I love about working with wikis (and creating my own this week) is that, when compared to blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and the like, wikis allow for effective, efficient, and immediate communication between peers, colleagues, and students--blogging is extremely beneficial, yes, but, in my opinion, at times, the use of a blogs to disperse and consider alternative views and perspectives on issues can become overwhelming, cluttered, and disorganized. Wikis provide users with a single, central location to communicate their ideas, share products, and work through issues together as a united front. Take, for example, this class--we are all required to create and sustain an individualized, online identity through the generation of a blog; our blogs contain each of our unique thoughts and perspectives, and, in order to consider the views of peers, we are forced to sift through hundreds of posts, all of which were created using different systems and devices (i.e., we need passwords, identification codes, etc. to share ideas). Wikis eliminate this need to "sift"; the "math as a social activity" wiki page that I created for this week (the link is above) provides my house members with the opportunity to respond back to, comment on, and deeply consider the questions, thoughts, and ideas that I posed on a central page focused on a specific topic. In my opinion, when considering the capabilities of blogging, the use of wikis would be a far more viable option to use in the classroom--organizational capabilities are greatly enhanced, allowing the students' comments, thoughts, and ideas to be emphasized (rather than the technical components of "how" the technology should be used). Weekly, monthly, and/or annual wiki pages (as well as wikis focusing upon specific content units) will definitely be at the core of my classroom instruction, as I believe that this technology provides students with a useful communicative medium through which their ideas can be shared.