Blog Basics For Higher Education

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Blog Basics For Higher Education

• David FreeLawrenceville IT Scholars
• February 16, 2006

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Whats A Blog?

• Formatted website used for communication,
  community.
• Posts on a common webpage usually in reverse
  chronological order.
• Typically accessible by any Internet
  user.Source Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/
  Weblog)

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Whats A Blog?

• Late 2004/ Early 2005
• 8 million Americans created blogs
• Readership up 58 in 2004
• 27 of Internet users read blogs
• 12 of Internet users comment on blogsSource
  Pew Internet and American Life Project State of
  Blogging Report (http//www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/
  144/report_display.asp )

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Anatomy Of A Blog

• Common features
• Time/date stamp
• Comments
• Permalinks
• Archives
• Blogroll
• MariettaEcon (mariettaecon.blogspot.com)

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Types Of Weblogs

• Personal
• Topical/ Niche
• News
• Political
• Corporate
• MP3/ Photo/ Video

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Blog Search Tools

• Search for weblogs or blog posts on specific
  topics
• Feedster www.feedster.com
• Google Blog Search blogsearch.google.com

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Creating A Blog

• Free and pay online hosting sites
• Downloadable software (must have a web server!)
• Live Journal www.livejournal.com
• Blogger www.blogger.com
• Lets make a blog!

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RSS/ Syndication

• Really Simple Syndication
• Rich Site Summary
• RDF Site Summary
• A document specification for Web content that
  allows feed readers or aggregators to collect,
  organize, and present Web-based content.
• Huh?

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What is RSS?

• A way to make web content deliverable to and
  readable on the aggregator service of your choice

Content from all of those sites delivered to one
place
Your daughters blog
Netflix
slashdot.org
cnn.com
Jerzs Literacy Weblog
chronicle.com
SEC football
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Feed Readers

• Tools to manage web subscriptions
• Bloglines www.bloglines.com/
• My Yahoo! my.yahoo.com

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Blogs In Higher Education

• Course Management
• Class Discussion
• Student Writing Response
• Group Projects
• Professional Commentary

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Two Sample Higher Ed Blogs

• Writing To The Moment (GA Tech English 1101
  Classes)(tryon1101.blogspot.com)
• Jerzs Literacy Weblog (jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog/
  index.jsp)

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Why Should Students Blog?

• Article on Seton Hill Blogging (www.post-gazette.c
  om/pg/05359/627794.stm)
• Student blogging can lead to dialogue with the
  wider academic sphere
• Students move from being users to being
  co-creators of the internet
• Problems can become teachable moments with real
  world grit, even though boundaries have to be
  found and enforced
• Students learn to be bloggers and this learning
  experience can help them position themselves as
  adults within the public sphere
• Source http//possibleworlds.blogs.com/blogsperi
  ment/

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Blogging Issues

• Reputation
• Getting dooced
• Anonymity?
• Tone
• Keeping it fresh
• Retractions and corrections

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Questions/ Comments?

• www.gpc.edu/dfree/blogbasics/edublogging.htm
• dfree_at_gpc.edu