1. The What, Why, and How of Blogs and Blogging
Prof. Burks Oakley II
Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
Director, University of Illinois Online
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois
January 2006 1

2. 2004 Word of the Year

3. Definition of Blog & Blogging
A blog is a website for which an individual or a group, frequently generates text, photographs, video, audio files, and/or links, typically (but not always) on a daily basis. The term is a shortened form of weblog.
Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts”, “posts”, or “entries”. The person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”.

4. Blogs – The Basics Blogs are web pages
Read in reverse chronological order – the most recent postings are read first
Continue to increase in popularity - a new blog is created every second
Popular in part because of the simple software used to create them
simple to create
simple to update
neatly organized
free!

5. Blogs & Blogging - Media
Media used with blogs
Most blogs are text-based
There also are photo blogs, audio blogs (podcasts), and video blogs (vodcasts)

6. Blogging – The Author
Create a free account at Blogger.com

7. Blogging – The Author
Enter blog posting on a web-based form

8. Blogging – The Author
Publish the blog at Blogspot.com

9. Blogging – The Reader View the blog posting directly on the web
Subscribe to the RSS feed for the blog using an RSS feed aggregator

10. Why Would You Want to Blog?
Writing practice
Creative outlet
Crystallize wisdom
Contribute
Connect
Speed familiarity
Capture learning history

11. Growth of Blogging

12. The Blogosphere
“Blogosphere is the collective term encompassing all blogs as a community or social network. Many weblogs are densely interconnected; bloggers read others’ blogs, link to them, reference them in their own writing, and post comments on each others’ blogs. Because of this, the interconnected blogs have grown their own culture.”

13. Interesting Blogs Online Learning Update Techno-News Update
Reflections (photo blog)
Burks On Learning (audio blog)
Lanny on Learning Technology
Chronicle Wired Campus
Tama’s e-Learning Blog
Boing-Boing

15. How to Find Blogs Google blog search Yahoo! blog search Technorati
Bloglines

16. Blogs – Great Resource
Seven Things You Should Know About … Blogs – from EDUCAUSE
What is it?
Who is doing it?
How does it work?
Why is it significant?
What are the downsides?
Where is it going?
What are the implications for teaching and learning?

17. Teaching and Learning
“Blogs are an increasingly accepted instructional technology tool. Blogs can be used for reflection about classes, careers, or current events; they can also capture and disseminate student- and faculty-generated content.”
“Blogs offer students, faculty, staff and others a high level of autonomy while creating a new opportunity for interaction with peers. Blogs provide a forum for discussion that goes beyond coursework to include culture, politics, and other areas of personal exploration. Students often learn as much from each other as from instructors or textbooks, and blogs offer another mechanism for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and acquisition.”

18. An (Optional) Assignment
Go to Blogger.com and create a free account.
Create a blog [MyBlogName].
Compose your first blog posting.
Publish it at:
Let all your friends, colleagues, and family know the URL. You now are an official blogger!!

19. The What, Why, and How of Blogs and Blogging
Submit questions to Rob Reilly:
Burks Oakley II
web:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution – NonCommercial - ShareAlike 2.5 License.