|
 Introduction
to Weblogs
A Weblog is a web page that
"logs" or links to other pages on the web. Created and maintained
by an editor or "blogger", the weblog is a cross between, a journal,
newspaper, ezine and hotlist.
For those deluged by information
the weblog offers a filter for information on the Internet. The
weblog editor sifts through the magnitude of sites on the Internet,
sifting through the meaningless junk and highlighting the important
material for their audience.
Weblogs originally evolved from
email messages sent by Internet surfers. An individual might write
an email to friends notifying them of a new site or recent discovery.
Eventually it became obvious that this sharing of information could
be better accomplished by posting it on a web page and Weblogs were
born.
A weblog at its heart consists
of postings. A typical post may contain observations, comments,
rumors, facts and of course links to sites and resources all over
the web. The general format for a weblog is to post the newest entry
at the top of the page with past posts listed in descending order.
Weblogs are generally centered
on a particular subject although for many the subjects are not rigidly
followed. The subject areas are selected by the blogger; subjects
include a wide range with many bloggers, making themselves and their
views the focus of their blog.
Much of the appeal of weblogs
lies in the personalities of the bloggers who create them. Just
as many of us fans of the print world have favorite columnists or
authors, bloggers also draw a following.
Educational
Use of Weblogs
Most instructors are now integrating
the web into their classes. This integration may take the form of
a few links suggested for students, online exercise, class web sites
or full out distance learning. The weblog is able to accommodate
all of these uses and more. It can function as a website, a communication
tool and even be used as an online classroom.
- Create Community: A
weblog offers an educator a chance to create community. This community
is a vital element in most classes, one that is often hard to
replicate in an online environment.
- Share Information:
The weblog is also an information dissemination tool, allowing
student and teacher to share information on the web. How many
times have you stumbled across some bit of information about your
subject specialty that you thought might be of interest to your
students? Perhaps a new web site, an article, book title or personal
observation. The weblog allows us to put all this information
into an information stream that can then be fed to students.
- Easy to Use: In the
past creating websites for a class required an instructor to have
a fair degree of technological savvy. They had to know how to
code HTML or use an HTML editor; they had to have some concept
of file management, graphics and file transfer protocol. Now thanks
to many of the new software products on the market and freely
available on the web, creating a weblog to function as a web site
is as easy as writing an email.
Some good academic examples
are A Curmudgeon Teaches Statistics, http://cuwu.editthispage.com/
is the weblog of John Marden, Statistics instructor, Cubs fan and
proponent of weblogs in education. Glena Kasko an instructor at
Bellevue Community College is using her weblog, http://glenakelso.editthispage.com/
to post daily information for students in her Anatomy and Physiology
class.
Weblogs can be used by instructors
as well as departments to post and maintain information on the web.
Places such as Kern County in Southern California, http://kcsos.kern.org/tlc/
and the Burlingame School District, http://www.burlingameschools.com/
use weblogs to maintain and post information on their web pages.
An institution can buy the software
needed to set up unlimited weblogs for $899 from Frontier Userland,
http://frontier.userland.com/
makers of a powerful software program for the creation of weblogs.
C.2001 South Seattle Community
College Teaching and Learning Center
This document is available on the web at http://dept.seattlecolleges.com/tlc/resources/weblogs.html
Visit the TLC on the Web at http://dept.seattlecolleges.com/tlc/
Copyright Pamela Enyasi Wilkins
2001
Weblogs Potential Uses in Education
Download handouts: Weblogs,
Creating a Weblog |
