Educational Blogging

Educational Blogging is a public, personal, communication zone. Cyberportfolios, are a virtual extension of the classroom where announcements are displayed, and work of common interest is posted: Blogging is an opportunity for students to exchange their point of view with the rest of the world, not just people in their immediate environment.

It has created the emergence of a learning community that goes beyond the school walls.

Blogging is sweeping the world of online learning by providing more experiences writing online for an audience than writing with a pen and paper for the teacher. Blogs are used to:

  • archive and publish students work,
  • learn with far-flung collaborators,
  • manage the knowledge that members of the school community create.

The weblog is frequently characterized ( and criticized) as a set of personal comments and observations. Many writers assert that blogs came into their own only after the events of September 11, 2001. The ongoing coverage brought home the immediancy of blogging, not only allowed access to the event, but making them a part of the event.

Before Sept. 11th, “Blog” used to mean a personal online diary, but now, “Blog” refers to a Web journal that comments on the news. Blogs are used to link to your friends and rivals, to comment on what they’re doing. Blogging is something defined by format and process, not by content. The Blog adds to the form of the diary by incorporating the best features of hypertext: the capacity to link new and useful resources. Personal publishing.

Henry Farrell identifies Five major uses of Blogging:

  1. Teachers use Blogs to:
    1. Replace the standard class Web pages
    2. Post class times and rules,
    3. Assignment notifications
    4. Suggested readings
    5. Excercises
    6. Ordering materials
  2. Instructors begin to link to internet items and topics that relate to the course.
  3. Blogs are used to organize in-class discussions. Students get to know each other better by visiting and reading blogs from other students. They discover in a non-threathening way their similarities and differences. Everyone has the same writing space to voice their own opionions.
  4. Some instructors use Group Blogs to organize class seminars and to provide summaries of readings. They make it much easier for the students and professors to access the material.
  5. Students write their own blogs for a grade.

Hosting services: A web site that will give you access to everything you need in order to create a Blog. The best known service is the Blogger. 

Others are LiveJournal, GrokSoup, Salon Blogs, TypePad, Major International. 

Installed Applications: A remotely installed application is a piece of software that you obtain from the provider and install on your own Web site. The number of users is much lower, but those who do tend to be more dedicated and more knowledgeable. Installed applications are more suitable for institutional use, since access can be controlled.

Blogs encourage people to write. They allow people to read and voice their opinions in a forum in which they would not ever have been heard. Anything other than the entry field is a bell or whistle.