Aesop's Fables... in Latin!
Ning Diary: Nov. 26 - wikis, blogs and Nings
So, as promised yesterday, here are some thoughts about wikis, which are the main other web publishing tool that I use in addition to blogs and Nings.
Each of the three items serves a very different purpose, so it is actually easy to choose between them... but the one thing they have in common is that they are FAST: wikis, blogs, and Nings are all web-based tools that allow you to publish things quickly, and also to make additions and corrections to previously published materials very quickly. (I'll say something tomorrow about websites and why I don't build websites anymore, and haven't for about two years now - with the advent of these incredibly flexible tools like wikis and Nings.)
So, how is a wiki different from a blog and from a Ning? Well, first let me review how I see blogs and Nings.
A blog, as I explained day before yesterday, is great for working through things systematically, day by day, or week by week. I use a blog when I want to develop content slowly but surely, working through it one step at a time (one fable at a time, in my own case, one Christmas carol at a time in my Latin Christmas carol blog for December, etc.). A blog is definitely a way to develop content, but it has no structure or organization yet - it is just content content content, piled up and accumulating, awaiting further refinement.
A Ning, on the other hand, is not for content development at all - a Ning is a communication tool, a way to interact with others online and share thoughts and ideas. I don't worry about needing to back up my Nings because there is nothing in there that really needs to be saved - oh sure, I sometimes go back and look for things I read at a Ning, or things that I contributed myself, but I don't ever systematically go back through a Ning and "harvest" content the way that I do with blogs. The Ning is where I build a gateway to share content with others, and they can also build a gateway to share their content, using the discussion boards and blog in a shared space.
So... what is a wiki for, then? If my blogs are just heaps of content... and a Ning is a gateway to the content - well then, the wiki is the place where I take the content published in the blog and keep it more organized. So, after I get to the end of some kind of big blog project - like when I blogged every fable of Abstemius's Hecatomythium, one fable per day, then I copy-and-paste the content of the blog posts (sometimes doing some editing too) over to a wiki - in this case to my Aesopus fables wiki: Abstemius.
In a sense, a wiki is kind of like an online book - where as a blog is like notes for an online book. Eventually, some of my wiki content turns into books. I've published two books with Lulu, for example - Latin Via Proverbs and Vulgate Verses - and those both grew out of wikis. Even better, after the books are published, the wiki is still there as a repository for content that does not fit in the book, like audio resources, commentary, etc.
For the new Aesop book from Bolchazy-Carducci, having the wiki as a place to publish supplemental content is going to be incredibly important simply because of the many different ways in which the fables can be used by students and teachers. So, as the book is now going to press, I can turn to what I consider the real work - building up the supplementary materials at the Aesopus wiki in the section there dedicated to Barlow.
In another post, I'll say something about why of all the different wiki software out there, I use PBWiki - but for now, I'll mention one important advantage: they let you back up the content of your wiki as a file you can save on your computer. I would be sad if I lost the contents of my blogs (but eventually, the important blog content goes to a wiki anyway, so at most I would lose a few months of work... and I don't expect Google will be going away anytime soon) - and with the Ning, I don't really have any content at all that is important to save (even though it does take time to set up and maintain the Ning). But with the wikis... oh, I would be really sad if I lost the content that I have accumulated both at my Aesopus fable wiki and at my Latin Via Proverbs wiki. So, I back those up once a month - and I am glad that PBWiki makes it so easy for me to do that! :-)
Each of the three items serves a very different purpose, so it is actually easy to choose between them... but the one thing they have in common is that they are FAST: wikis, blogs, and Nings are all web-based tools that allow you to publish things quickly, and also to make additions and corrections to previously published materials very quickly. (I'll say something tomorrow about websites and why I don't build websites anymore, and haven't for about two years now - with the advent of these incredibly flexible tools like wikis and Nings.)
So, how is a wiki different from a blog and from a Ning? Well, first let me review how I see blogs and Nings.
A blog, as I explained day before yesterday, is great for working through things systematically, day by day, or week by week. I use a blog when I want to develop content slowly but surely, working through it one step at a time (one fable at a time, in my own case, one Christmas carol at a time in my Latin Christmas carol blog for December, etc.). A blog is definitely a way to develop content, but it has no structure or organization yet - it is just content content content, piled up and accumulating, awaiting further refinement.
A Ning, on the other hand, is not for content development at all - a Ning is a communication tool, a way to interact with others online and share thoughts and ideas. I don't worry about needing to back up my Nings because there is nothing in there that really needs to be saved - oh sure, I sometimes go back and look for things I read at a Ning, or things that I contributed myself, but I don't ever systematically go back through a Ning and "harvest" content the way that I do with blogs. The Ning is where I build a gateway to share content with others, and they can also build a gateway to share their content, using the discussion boards and blog in a shared space.
So... what is a wiki for, then? If my blogs are just heaps of content... and a Ning is a gateway to the content - well then, the wiki is the place where I take the content published in the blog and keep it more organized. So, after I get to the end of some kind of big blog project - like when I blogged every fable of Abstemius's Hecatomythium, one fable per day, then I copy-and-paste the content of the blog posts (sometimes doing some editing too) over to a wiki - in this case to my Aesopus fables wiki: Abstemius.
In a sense, a wiki is kind of like an online book - where as a blog is like notes for an online book. Eventually, some of my wiki content turns into books. I've published two books with Lulu, for example - Latin Via Proverbs and Vulgate Verses - and those both grew out of wikis. Even better, after the books are published, the wiki is still there as a repository for content that does not fit in the book, like audio resources, commentary, etc.
For the new Aesop book from Bolchazy-Carducci, having the wiki as a place to publish supplemental content is going to be incredibly important simply because of the many different ways in which the fables can be used by students and teachers. So, as the book is now going to press, I can turn to what I consider the real work - building up the supplementary materials at the Aesopus wiki in the section there dedicated to Barlow.
In another post, I'll say something about why of all the different wiki software out there, I use PBWiki - but for now, I'll mention one important advantage: they let you back up the content of your wiki as a file you can save on your computer. I would be sad if I lost the contents of my blogs (but eventually, the important blog content goes to a wiki anyway, so at most I would lose a few months of work... and I don't expect Google will be going away anytime soon) - and with the Ning, I don't really have any content at all that is important to save (even though it does take time to set up and maintain the Ning). But with the wikis... oh, I would be really sad if I lost the content that I have accumulated both at my Aesopus fable wiki and at my Latin Via Proverbs wiki. So, I back those up once a month - and I am glad that PBWiki makes it so easy for me to do that! :-)
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