What is a blog?

• Web based publication
• Entries (posts) of varying length – usually shorter rather than longer
• Blogs have a name
• Published in reverse chronological order
• Include a heading, date/time stamp, attribute authorship
• Archived by date
• Able to apply categories to individual posts – Ability to collate posts around specific themes/practices
• Blogroll – a list of other blogs that the author regularly reads
• Supports optional comments
• Content Management System (CMS)
• Allows a blogger become a publisher rather than just an author
• Easily interlinked between other blogs – network
• Allows writing of a diverse range of voices – scholarly, personal, controversial, humorous
• Distinctly contemporary writing practice
• A communicative space
• Print literacy – it takes time to learn how to use a blog
• Use of the blog has to be strongly integrated into the learning or students will recognise that it isn’t worth their wile

Why are blogs useful?

• Document your practice
• Encourage and support reflective and process based learning
• Nurture peer support and learning
• Provide a record for achievement
• Assisting in idea creation
• Support collaboration
• Develop multiliterancies that allow participation within contemporary information ecologies
• The student is the creator not just the consumer
• A maintained record – ideas, reflections, activities, things to be done
• It’s a public document – written under the assumption that it has readers
  • Needs to be written so it makes sense to other readers
  • Care needs to be exercised
  • Write with the knowledge that this post will be read by others
  • Can’t have cryptic asides to yourself
• Can be linked to by others
• Makes the student able to recognise that their work is able to make a contribution to a larger community
• Community of practice is created – reading other blogs, commenting on them, ect
  • Introduction into blogging
  • Required tasks
  • Sufficient scaffolding
  • Document lectures/tutorials/readings/problems/respond to others questions/detail confusions/collect meeting notes for collaborative projects
• Not limited to a single cohort
• Document and explore changes in their lives
• Provide enough teaching and use that the experience of driving and technology becomes second nature
• Support the students in process based reflective practice
• A range of set tasks
• Used to gauge a student’s understanding
• Students can effectively see and understand the differences between their capabilities
• Model questions about online identity
• Develop an online persona
• Develop a range of literacies around the internet and digital technologies
• Simple, essential questions about copyright, intellectual property, and internet ethics will arise – essential knowledge when working in media
• A key feature of the internet as a communication environment is its decentralised, distributed and densely interconnected nature