Friday, April 20, 2007
Blogs - What are they good for?
Before we start our own blog it might be good idea to ponder the reasons we would want to use blogs in our classroom. However, this is a bit of a chicken/egg situation. Until you start one, and experience the capabilities you might not have the information you need to decide if this is useful for educational purposes. Let's do a bit of exploring to see how other teachers are using their blogs. As we explore lets use the comments feature in this post to collectively gather thoughts on the "anatomy of a blog".
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blogs posts occur in reverse chronological order
Blogs often have archives of previous posts. Also a blog entry is frequently tagged or otherwise placed in a category.
Blogs all share some comon characteristics, They usually share a topic or theme. They allow communication through posts used by those interested in the topic of the blog, or person hosting the blog.
I can see great value in blogs when you can share information with one another. I am excited about the TIE blog because there is always so much going on and I can't get to all the sessions I would like to. The blog will tell me what I missed and hopefully how I can get any information I am still interested in.
Having read part of the Central lockdown blog, I also see great value in giving students a place to work out there feelings about the day. How frightening for all involved. It is nice for everyone to get to read those. In the past, teachers would have had students write about the event, but the rest of us would not have had that window in.
Looking through some of the other blogs, I can see some tools I would like to add to my website that I didn't know were available. Great information!
Each blog has a starting point where people comment. Then the blogger will be able to continue to give their ideas or comments about their thoughts. It's basically a communication piece.
Blogs usually have a profile of the creator, favorite blogs of the creator, perhaps del.ic.ous tags.
Blogs can be used as a method to make notes about various topics and websites as you use the web to seach for information, as well as an sort of online diary or forum to express your thoughts, questions or opinions on any topic that you wish. This can be method in education as a "remember when I did this in class" method of recalling important events,methods
or facts for preparting for exams, etc.
Blogs share a common topic or theme, and the ability to allow the writers voice to come through while sharing their passion/interest in the subject.
Some blogs have hyperlinks to other information.
The examples provided all had a similar layout structure. Title, content frame, link/advertizing frame, etc. Basically, a digital soapbox.
easy way to share info out to anyone on info at hand, get more info, links out to other info, great tools
A great way to get input on subject matter from even the most shy student in a class.
Blogs quite often have an easy to read newspaper format. Welcoming the reader to take part in the site. Many of them have a list of recent blog entries by the owner of the blog as well as an area for finding archived blogs.
Blogs start out with a comment or question--follwed by a chance to make comments on the post.
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