Tool #6 Wikis

My biggest question about wikis is, what is the difference between a wiki and a Google Doc? Both allow everyone on the account to add/edit information and everyone on the account can see the changes.

I would like to have things organized in one place and not scattered all over. For example, I have put a lot of websites and resources on Delicious. I'm going to try to get more familiar with Diigo this summer. If Diigo seems to do more and be better for researching, I may switch and not use Delicious next year. I don't want to make things complicated for students and have them going to lots of different sites.

So that brings me to Google Docs and wikis. I can see uses for both, and they seem to be similar, so which is better?

In looking at some wikis and information about wikis, I got a few ideas. "Cool Cat's" students idea of creating a "study hall" wiki was a neat idea. Students had a calendar with all of their classes and due dates of assignment. I have a calendar on my website, but not all students use it. If they were to create their own, maybe in a study group, they could help each other keep on top of assignments.

There were some examples of wiki assignments that are things I could use in class. One was a resume. This was for an English class, but I could use it in my history classes. Students could create resumes for historical figures we study.

Another idea would be to give groups a theme, locate primary source documents on that them. Students would discuss origin, purpose, value and limitations of the documents. Then students could look at other groups' wikis and agree/disagree and tell why or give an additional value or limitation for the documents.

It seems like these assignments could be done equally well on a Google Doc or a wiki. So that makes we wonder what are the essential differences between the two? Why would a person or group choose to use one over the other?