Blogs, Wikis, RSS,

1
Blogs, Wikis, RSS,

• Peter Albion
• Learning Futures Institute (LFI)
• Faculty of Education, USQ21 October 2004

2
Precursors of the web

• 1945
• Vannevar Bush conceptualised the Memex
• Memory extender device
• Coded links microfilm storage
• 1960
• Ted Nelson promoted Xanadu
• Global hypermedia with micropayments
• Released (incomplete) in 1998

3
The WWW

• 1989
• Tim Berners-Lee at CERN built ENQUIRE
• Enquire within about everything
• 1990
• Berners-Lee proposed the WWW
• Created the first pages software
• Browser was also the editor
• 1993
• CERN announced the WWW as free to all

4
Separation of functions

• WWW was created on NeXT
• Combined editor and browser
• Early user software was browser only
• HTML coded in text editor
• WYSIWYG editors released later
• Exceptions
• Netscape Composer component
• MSIE edit via FrontPage Express
• Needed server access enabled

5
Coding HTML

• Pure text markup with tags
• Seen by programmers as simple
• Use existing tools
• Seen by users as difficult
• More complex than word processing
• Evolving standards
• HTML, DHTML, XML, XHTML, CSS
• Tables, frames, JavaScript, media
• Risky for non-technical users

6
Exchange to consumption and back

• WWW conceived for peer exchange
• Structured information
• Lack of simple editor
• Most users were readers
• Not writers
• Commercialisation
• Consumer approach to the WWW
• Publishing by specialists
• New online tools
• Publishing for all

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Weblog to blog

• blog is a corruption of weblog
• Term emerged circa1997-1999
• Originally
• Log of links with comment
• Extension of the bookmarks page
• More recently
• Personal journal - highly variable
• News and comment - citizen journalists
• Personal publishing
• Spontaneous
• Reflects personal style

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Blogging as social phenomenon

• Rapid growth in numbers
• Feb 2004 - gt 3 million in USA
• Notable events
• Post 9/11 communication (see Downes, 2004)
• Howard Dean campaign http//blog.deanforamerica.co
  m/

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Typical blog features

• Date time stamp
• Title
• Post
• Author
• Category
• Comments - by readers
• Trackback - link to post in another blog
• http//www.unc.edu/zuiker/blogging101/index.html

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How blogging works
http//www.streamlinewebco.com/blog/_archives/2004
/3/23/28903.html
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Blog hosting on the web

• Blogger http//www.blogger.com/
• Free publishing and hosting
• Now owned by Google
• Simple web interface
• MovableType http//www.movabletype.org/
• Free software for personal use - own server
• Paid hosting
• LiveJournal http//www.livejournal.com/
• Free basic publishing hosting
• Paid hosting with extra features

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Roll your own

• Blog hosting software - install at ISP
• Mostly open source and/or free
• MovableType, WordPress, blogcms, blosxom,
  Drupal, etc.
• Desktop blogging
• Software on your computer
• Publish to ISP or hosting service
• MacOS X 10.4 (Tiger) - due 2005
• User blogs are standard

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Who is blogging about what?

• Personal journals for friends family
• Personal reporting activism
• Professional presence
• Communications, design, KM, etc.
• Academic teaching and research
• Corporations
• Internal for knowledge management
• External for customer relations
• Microsoft
• Scoble http//radio.weblogs.com/0001011/
• Cheung http//blogs.msdn.com/decheung/

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Educational blogging

• Educators sharing experience
• Teaching ideas
• Personal reflection support
• Teaching courses
• Presenting by blog
• Linked and/or group blogs for discussion
• Simple portfolio - http//edu2472.blogspot.com/
• Mass blogs for students
• Some UK USA offer blogs for all

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Wiki

• Wikiwiki web
• Hawaiian for quick
• Read and edit in the browser
• Each page has an edit link
• Special syntax for formatting
• Sophisticated display with CSS
• Tools
• Open source
• Free and modifiable
• Used within other systems

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Wikipedia

• Global collaboration on encyclopedia
• http//en.wikipedia.org/
• Approaching 400 000 articles
• Editable by anybody
• Concerns
• Accuracy - those who know can fix it
• Bias - alternate views can change it
• Vandalism - changes are tracked
• Administrators can roll it back

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Wikis in education

• Potential uses
• Shared work space
• Course plans other documents
• Collaborative resource creation
• Petrea
• EDU4472 project - http//edux.usq.edu.au/redmond/
  wiki/
• Bernie Dodge games course
• Blog wiki - http//edwiki.org/edgames/
• Creating a useful reference resource

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RSS

• Rich Site Summary
• Really Simple Syndication
• May be popularised as webfeed
• Multiple standards
• RSS versions Atom
• XML description of content
• Titles, dates, summary, content
• Parsed by computer
• Presented for human readers

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Readers aggregators

• Search, collate present
• One stop shop for news
• Desktop software
• NewsGator works with Outlook
• Mac equivalents - NetNewsWire, Shrook
• Web tools
• Bloglines - http//www.bloglines.com/
• Feedster - http//feedster.net/

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RSS services

• Common blog feature
• EdNA
• News searches offer RSS
• http//www.edna.edu.au/edna/page3041.html
• Feed2JS
• Maricopa Community Colleges
• http//jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/feed/
• Converts RSS for display in web page

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Why use RSS?

• Publisher
• Publish when ready
• Maintain contact with readers
• Marketing support
• Reader
• Convenient single point access to news
• Avoid checking multiple locations

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Other interesting tools

• del.icio.us
• Sharable bookmark list
• http//del.icio.us/
• Furl
• Save share copies of web pages
• http//www.furl.net/
• Webnote
• Sticky notes on the web
• http//www.aypwip.org/webnote/

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So what?

• Communities of interest share
• Discovered sources comment
• Plans and early results
• Responses
• Questions of interest
• How would participation in a blogging community
  affect the professional growth of teachers?
• What is the potential of blogging as a medium for
  sharing professional learning in the faculty?

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Selected references

• Baggaley, J. (2003). Blogging as a course
  management tool. The Technology Source,
  http//ts.mivu.org/default.asp?showarticleid201
  1
• Downes, S. (2004). Educational Blogging. EDUCAUSE
  Review, 39(5), http//www.educause.net/ir/library/
  pdf/erm0450.pdf
• Harrsch, M. (2003). RSS The next killer app for
  education. The Technology Source,
  http//ts.mivu.org/default.asp?showarticleid201
  0
• Lamb, B. (2004). Wide open spaces Wikis, ready
  or not. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5),
  http//www.educause.net/ir/library/pdf/erm0452.pdf
  
• Williams, J. B., Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring
  the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher
  education sector. Australian Journal of
  Educational Technology, 20(2), 232-247.