Blogs

I am introducing my students to Blogs and the joys of reflection this week. I have been blogging for a while although I will admit that I am not necessarily the most assiduous blogger and really have to get to grips with this. I decided that one of the problems was that my blog had no focus. I originally set it up as a research journal and it ended up getting used as a publish point for just about anything. So I have set this one up and am going to use it solely for highlighting any new software I come across for my teaching and keep the other one for for the research.

So Blogging well where do I begin for them to really understand what it is all about.

The history of blogs

Blogging has become something of a big thing in recent years and some of the big blogs attract alot of high profile attention. So what are they well they are a collection of interesting links, and reflective journal. the beauty of a blog is that it can be an extension of your voice. there are no rules as to the tone of language or the formality of the writing, they are about what you think and what you believe / feel as such they tend to reflect the personalities of their owners and are richer for it. They are almost always personal web pages, updated very often, and include a mixture of diary, bookmark list, and interactivity.
They are the product of their owners' imagination and wit, and it's probably this personal touch which has made them so popular.
The first weblog was probably the Netscape What's New page, but there are varying claims to the title of oldest or earliest weblog on the net.
The word 'weblog' was coined by Jorn Barger, owner of the long-established and extremely popular Robot Wisdom weblog.

In the beginning was the world wide web, and we all used to search for hours, finding obscure and little known facts about a variety of subject matter. Then we needed more sophistication and with the ability to design web pages and publish on the net came the web logs or blogs, along with wiki's and social networking sites such as facebook and the world of Web 2.0 is upon us. So how can we use this to promote learning.


Well we all know that if pupil's are enjoying themselves then they learn better, we also know that the learning styles have changed for predominantly auditory to a more visual and kineasthetic style, largely attributable to living in an increasingly visual and digital world. Pupil's all over have embraced technology in their social life and as such we Can use WEB 2.0 as a way of bridging the link between social and educational. Apart from the real responsibility we have to ensure that our pupils use online technology safely and responsibly, we can promote reflection action and re synthesis by using blogs as a way of writing up their experiences, we can promote collaboration and working with others by the use of wikis. With the use of new technology in the classroom we can use their skills formed in the social networking arena and build confidence in subject matter.