What is a Blog?

A Weblog or blog is a frequently updated website that often resembles an online journal. It can be a frequently posted list of interesting web sites/resources or personal diary of events and thoughts, or a combination of the two. Unlike most Web sites, a blog is produced with an active writer in mind, one who creates in an online writing space designed to communicate an identity, a personality and most importantly, a point of view. Blogs might also include photos, audio and/or video.

Will Richardson adds that blogs are collaborative. They ask the reader to think and respond."Students can write about personal reactions to topics covered in class, post links, write reflectively, and summarize or annotate reading. They can use blogs as journals or as places to publish creative writing for larger audiences, The possiblities are endless. But by their very structure, blogs facilitate what I think is a new form of genre that could be called "connective writing." a form that forces those who do it to read carefully and critically, that demands clarity and cogency in its construction, that is done for a wide audiencce, and that links to the sources of the ideas expressed." (Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, 2006)

Another quote from Support Blogging website: "In a broader and more educational system, blogs are about communicating. You observe your experience, reflect on it, and then write about it. Other people read your reflections, respond from their perspectives by commenting or writing their own blog article. You read their perspectives, often learn something through their eyes, and write some more.

1. Blogging is about reading and writing.
2. Literacy is about reading and writing.
3. Blogging is about literacy. (dfw)"

Why Use Blogs in the Classroom?

There are many reasons to use blogs in the classroom. The best reasons are that blogs are easy to edit, easy to share ideas and resources, and most of all they provide an audience for your student's writing where the audience is willing to share back their thoughts about the student ideas.

Blogging provides a real audience, not just the instructor or classmates. An audience for a blog may include their parents, their peers, students and adults from other states or from around the world. Taken from Blogging for ELT

Fernette and Brock Eide's research (Brain of a Blogger) shows that bogs can:

• Promote critical and analytical thinking
• Be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking
• Promote analogical thinking
• Be a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information
• Combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

Gordon Brune states :

Without a doubt, the nature of literacy is changing in our society. Blogs, a journal style website that combines text, images, and links to other web pages, are one new technology that has played a large role in reshaping our literate environment. Blogs are beginning to appear in large numbers in schools, and the rationale for their use in school is numerable:

• Blogs provide a space for us to share opinions and learning with multiple communities.
• Blogs foster ownership and choice.
• Blogs provide a worldwide audience, compelling and motivating us to share our thoughts, opinions, and learning.
• Blogs provide an archive of our learning over time, facilitating reflection and learning.
• Blogs provide an opportunity for collective and collaborative learning.
• Blogs are interactive by nature, thus creating enthusiasm and for writing and communication and engagement in conversation and learning.
• Blogs provides the opportunity to discuss responsible public writing. We can learn about the power of the published word and the responsibilities involved with public writing.

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