As I write this, I keep thinking to myself...consider your audience, consider your audience. And THAT, in and of itself, is one of the major differences between webpages and weblogs or blogs, for short. Many people make a distinction between the two, but in my mind, blogs are just one version of a webpage. There are webpages that inform, webpages for news, sports, and entertainment, webpages that inform us about businesses, try to sell us products, and that allow us to connect with one another via discussion boards and forums. Blogs are just another from of a webpage with some distinct properties that make them special in ways that most webpages are not.
Most people would CRINGE if someone were to tell them to make a webpage or website. The average person has no knowledge of complicated web editors, domain spaces, and the like. I maintain a very basic (and mundane, if I should say so myself) webpage for my students and parents at school, but it's hosted by a larger site (SchoolCenter) that I would have absolutely NO idea how to start up or maintain on my own accord.
On the other hand, when I was commissioned (but I secretly wanted to anyway) to create a blog, it was as simple as using a word processing program. There was no cumbersome software package to learn and, even better, no out of pocket expenses for the software or to pay someone to maintain it. Using Blogger, my blog was created in minutes and I was ready to share my thoughts with the world, or the two good friends who were brave enough to subscribe and my classmates who were coerced into subscribing for a grade.
Now back to my original thought....you know, the one about audience. Blogs are powerful in that they have given the average computer user a voice in cyberspace like never before. You can find blogs and communities of followers on just about any subject known to man. It's refreshing to many to know that, when reading blogs, they aren't receiving some nicely packaged, well rehearsed, presentation of information, but the raw, uncut, and sometimes passionate thoughts of someone just like them. Blogs have a way of making us feel like we're getting the behind the scenes action, the reporter who wants to share his/her thoughts without the constraints of a network censoring the information. Webpages/sites are static or rarely change. Blogs are dynamic and interactive. The have an appeal that makes users feel more connected to the content and the creators unlike anything that any website has been able to produce prior. And blogs are written from a different perspective and voice, speaking and directed to an audience in a way that solicits interaction. This, alone, is probably one of the most powerful characteristics of blogs. And this power, the ability to share one's voice with the world, potentially, has sparked a phenomenon that will forever change the way that we communicate and access "information" via the internet.
So how do we harness all of this power and use it for our own good in education? This question brings me to another point about blogs. The people reading them rarely expect the blogger to have the solution, whereas that same person may search a website looking for absolute answers. There is something attractive about knowing that what you’re reading is written by a person who’s just like you, with a “normal” life who’s just driven, for whatever reason, to share their thoughts with them about a topic of interest. Many of the blogs that I follow just share ideas. They don’t pass info on as absolute or research-based. They just say, hey, here’s a thought I had, an observation I’ve made, a technique I’ve tried. Here’s a list of what I’ve read lately or my review of a concert or conference I’ve attended. There is something very appealing about this kind of interaction that people are drawn to.
Like the way that I set myself up here? J
I really don’t know what the best ways are for educators to use blogs for teaching and learning. I suspect that blogs could be used in writing classes or in the social sciences to give students a voice in the “real world”. As a math teacher, I struggle with ways that it can be used in mathematics. And this, very nicely, leads into my final thought about blogs. The blogger can solicit ideas from his/her readership about topics of interest and they can learn from others. And, with that, I’d love to hear your ideas about how blogs can be used in the classroom.
So there you have it. I’ve began my journey of communicating with the world via a blog. Thanks for reading….all TWO of you J
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