Week 01: Blogs

The following will provide tutorials, definitions and resources for Blogs. You are not required to look at all of the material, but search it until you feel that you have a good understanding of what is required for you to fulfill the assignment.

Table of contents

What are blogs? Articles with more explanations: Where to get a blog: Links to Learning Examples: Assignment

What are blogs?

From Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog): “…a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles, most often in reverse chronological order. Early weblogs were simply manually updated components of common websites. However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of web articles posted in said chronological fashion made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of “blogging.” Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software on regular web hosting services.”

Articles with more explanations:

• All About Blogs and RSS
  (http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/04/xmlfiles/)
• Beyond the Hype - What’s in a Weblog?
  (http://estrategy.ubc.ca/news/update0309/030917-weblogs.html)
• An Introduction to Weblogs(http://www.dynamicobjects.com/d2r/archives/002399.html)
• Some Tips From a Weary Weblogger
  (http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BlogShop_MAPLE/SocialBlogging)

Where to get a blog:

Here is a list of a few places to obtain a blog. Some cost and some are free.
Each one may offer different services so research before jumping in.

• WordPress (http://wordpress.com)
• Blogger (http://blogger.com)
• LiveJournal (http://livejournal.com)
• ManicFish (http://manicfish.com)
• Spaces (http://spaces.msn.com)
• Open Diary (http://opendiary.com)
• Xanga (http://www.xanga.com)

There is an extensive list of blogs available in Wikipedia

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_software) This list shows user-hosted and developer-hosted blogs.

Also, for a great comparison of blogs see:
(http://www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm)

Links to Learning

• Tutorial from UBC
  (http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BlogShop_MAPLE/IntroductionToWeblogs)
• Legal Issues
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog#Legal_issues)
• Copyright Issues
  (http://drexel-coas-elearning.blogspot.com/2006/05/using-copyrighted-materials-on-blogs.html)
• Blogs with Podcasts:Problem and Solutions
  (http://drexel-coas-elearning.blogspot.com/2006/05/student-posts-and-podcasts-dont-mix.html)
• Why Blog?
  (http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=767)
• A guide to blogging(http://anne.teachesme.com/2005/11/08#a4515).

Examples:

Student Cornelius Lamb (http://nilli29.blogspot.com/)

Student Paul Jones (http://www.sawfishmango.com/)

Student Connie Halioris (http://holographic-universe.blogspot.com/)

Student Jessica Freeman (http://jessfreeman.blogspot.com/)

Student Blake Berret (http://murmurs12.blogspot.com/)

Assignment

1. Sign up for your own blog
2. Customize it
3. Make your first post
4. Put the link on the wiki for all to see.

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Citation: Wiley, D. (2006, December 13). Blogs. Retrieved February 07, 2008, from Free Online Course Materials — USU OpenCourseWare Web site: http://ocw.usu.edu/Instructional_Technology/new-media/blogs.htm.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.