Blogs have gone mainstream. Television shows, movies, and even politicians have been making blog references (and appearances) for several years now. They are the backbone to Web 2.0, providing users an easy way to express their opinion, share mundane details about their lives, delve deep into issues often ignored by the media, and creating communities of users who share commonalities.
Blog Overview
- Democratization of web
- Grassroots, individual, community oriented, and collaborative
- Varied content - includes links, text, images, podcasts, video
- Updated regularly, reversed chronology
- Easily managed through online forms
- Updates can be easily tracked (RSS!)
- Growing at an incredible rate (Technorati Information)
An Activity
Make it Happen!
- Select a blog engine (Blogger, WordPress, EduBlogs, or even Moodle - more on this later)
- I would recommend WordPress because it allows you to control users more carefully.
- Set up accounts or have students do it.
- Decide upon the activity - ongoing, short-term, project based, etc.
- Types of use include:
- A multi-contributor blog - this is where the instructor and students add to the same blog, commenting on each other's posts.
- Individual blogs - students each have their own blog. Students can read and comment on each other's blogs.
- Teacher blog with comments - the instructor writes posts or prompts and requires to each student to comment.
- Creative blog - this can be a part of a WebQuest or other creative project.
- Make it happen.
Blogs as Sources of Information
In addition to having students publish blogs or comment on blog posts, you may also want to use existing blogs as a resource or as a teaching tool (for instance, to teach bias). If someone is thinking about it, doing it, or thinking about doing it - there's got to be a blog about it.
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