This week was very intense in terms of project work and online activities. I really enjoyed working with my partner Nodira and found out that we have much in common. The setting is a bit similar in our project plans as well. We both want to fascilitate autonomous learning between the class meetings, me with Nicenet and my partner - with blogger. The site she created is structured and logical and suits her goals best. This made me reflect on the nicenet compared to blogger as I am going to use nicenet to achieve a similar goal.
The goal is to provide space for discussions and keep track of students' progress to make sure they study the material regularly. I would like students to do the tasks regularly, read and comment on each other's posts and develop a project at the end. Taking it into consideration, I decided to use nicenet. Here I tried to sum up the pros and cons of both nicenet (N) and blogger (B).
1) Platform for organized discussions.
Both N & B. In N all participants can make a post and comment on each others' posts. Multiple discussion threads are handled easily. In B if you are the only author, students can leave only comments.Is it possible to comment on the comment?
2) Safety considerations. Both require sign-in.
3) Possiblity to embed video / audio. N doesn't have it. What about pictures? Somebody put pictures on N, but I didn't figure out how.
4) Possibility to insert a direct link into the post. Yes for B, no for N.N has separate page for links.
5) Template. N gives you a simple and convenient template:
The goal is to provide space for discussions and keep track of students' progress to make sure they study the material regularly. I would like students to do the tasks regularly, read and comment on each other's posts and develop a project at the end. Taking it into consideration, I decided to use nicenet. Here I tried to sum up the pros and cons of both nicenet (N) and blogger (B).
1) Platform for organized discussions.
Both N & B. In N all participants can make a post and comment on each others' posts. Multiple discussion threads are handled easily. In B if you are the only author, students can leave only comments.Is it possible to comment on the comment?
2) Safety considerations. Both require sign-in.
3) Possiblity to embed video / audio. N doesn't have it. What about pictures? Somebody put pictures on N, but I didn't figure out how.
4) Possibility to insert a direct link into the post. Yes for B, no for N.N has separate page for links.
5) Template. N gives you a simple and convenient template:
Hi Stasya!
ReplyDeleteI like your summary of pros and cons for Nicenet and Blogger! I agree with you that simple design of Nicenet makes it user friendly whereas Blogger allows more sophistication.
You can format messages, insert pictures and include hyperlinks by using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) on Nicenet.
Muhammad Rashid
Hi Anastasia,
ReplyDeleteNice comparison. yes, it's good to see you reflecting how to make Nicenet more interactive. I would support what Rashid has suggested. Learn HTML and it will bring unlock many mysteries of internet.
Tariq Hayat
Hi Anastasia,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments on my Blog.I liked how you compared Nicenet and Blogger. Your comparison gave more ideas to design better classes. Thanks a lot.
Regards from Peru,
Esteban Mallqui.
Hi Stasya,
ReplyDeleteReally very helpful brainstorming of pros and cons of blogs and Nicenet. I also had such dilemma while doing my project work. And as you have seen I have chosen the Blog. Maybe because I wanted it to be 'nicer - looking', more look like a website. Though I agree that Nicenet allows far more interaction between the participants.
So I think both of them are wonderful tools and it is just a matter of taste in certain cases.
Nodira
Hi stasya,
ReplyDeleteI like the way you listed prosand cons. I am using both tools and I can say if you understand how to manage Nicenet, it provides you a really interactive, and constructive learning environment.I like creating conferencing topics, that "chatting feel" on Nicenet. Link sharing, adding documents also gives the nature of real classroom. As Muhammed mentiones it is ,in fact, the point of using HTML, then everything is on the tip of your fingers. But if you wonder how students view these tools. One of my students said Nicenet doesn't have an attractive layout for its users, She said blogs are more colorful and that's why she likes blogs more. I think "image" is everything for this generation.
Best
Sebnem