What the Heck is a Blog and Do I Want One?

Mike Ribble College of Education Ben Ward, Swasati Mukherjee & Shalin Hai-Jew Office of Mediated Education What are Blogs

• Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines a blog as a “website that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks provided by the writer. • Wikipedia goes on to talk about the range of blogs from “individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs, and corporations”. http://davidwarlick.com/2cents Where Did It Begin?

• Term “weblog” coined in 1997 by Jorn Barger then shortened to “blog” by Peter Merholz in 1999. • Its precursors were AP Wire, Ham radio “glogs”, Usenet, e-mail lists and bulletin boards.

Source - Wikipedia.com, accessed: 8/26/2005 http://www.httoday.blogspot.com/ How Did It Become So Popular?

• Political Influence - 2001-2002, fall of Trent Lott, rise of Howard Dean and Wesley Clark • 2003, Iraq War - “Baghdad Blogger” • 2004, “Rathergate” - bloggers exposed documents as forgeries

Source: Wikipedia.com, Accessed 8/26/2005 http://www.weblogg-ed.com Blogs Today

• 27% of American Internet Users visited a blog in 2005, up 58% from 2004 • Blog readers tend to be young, male, well-educated, internet veterans • 12% of American internet users have posted comments on others blogs up from 4% in 2003.

Source: pewinternet.org, The State of Blogging Report (January 2005) http://powerlineblog.com http://wizbangblog.com So How Can They Be Used In Education?

• Instructors - posting content related information, networking or knowledge sharing, instructional tips, announcements, annotated links • Students - reflective journals, assignment submission, dialog for groups, share resources • University - recruiting tool, announcements http://www.erau.edu/db/journals/st5.html Issues/Problems in Blogging

• Students can write just about anything - and sometimes do • Things written today may be held against you in the future • Where is the boundary between freedom of speech and my rights http://www.xanga.com I have given you some ideas to think about - now go and try some of them out. Always remember, start small and build on successes.

Now let's hear from Ben, Swasati and Shalin on how to create and maintain a blog. They will also discuss the Instructional Design Open Studio blog that they've all started..found at http://ome.ksu.edu/id/blog