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by Jessica McBride


What is a blog?

Blogs (nickname for Weblogs) are becoming more and more a part of our everyday lives. In short, a blog is a place where anyone can create their own website, create or add content easily, and broadcast it to the world. According to the Educause article "7 Things You should Know about Blogging," a blog is "an online chronological collection of personal commentary and links." Blogs have evolved from their primary function as an outlet for the publication of personal diaries into a credible and respected arena for editorials and general information. Although blogs are now more recognized and utilized by media companies, blogging still allows for anyone, anywhere to create and share their own thoughts at any time. Gone are the days of needing to be able to write HTML code in order to have your personal space on the web. For more detailed information about the history of blogs, see Andy Carvin's post on his blog learning.now, or click here to see Lee Lefever's video Blogs in Plain English.

There are many types of blogs that can be easily found with a search engine. Still used as personal journals or online diaries (see Jason Dunn's personal blog where he discusses diverse topics related to his everyday life), other types of blogs are becoming more and more prevalent. For instance, there are collaborative blogs (see The Collaborative Piano Blog), family blogs (see the Bayer Family blog), community blogs (see the Dublin Community blog), corporate blogs (see Google corporate blog), Warblogs (see Markos Moulitsas Zúniga's blog DailyKos, which was voted best warblog by Forbes magazine), Lib blogs or library blogs (see the Library of Congress' Lib blog), and Edublogs to name a few (see Bertalan Mesko's Scienceroll which won the 2007 Eddie Edublog Award for best individual educational blog).

As aforementioned, blogging is incredibly easy and allows for anyone to participate. To start your own blog geared toward whichever topic or audience you like, first explore and choose a blogging website that suits your needs. There are many options including, but not limited to: Wordpress, Blogger, Blogspot, Typepad, Blogsome, eBlog, and Edublog. Begin your blog by choosing a name and a website, then begin your first post, which is as easy as typing an email. It is also easy to add pictures, hyperlinks, videos, audio - almost any type of media you'd like. Also, it is now easy to add audio to blogs using cell phones with services like Audioblog, Blogger for your phone and Gabcast (see Lisa Kolb's blog or the MobileActive.org site called How to Start Mobile Blogging for more infomation). Different settings allow you to make your blog as private or as public as you want. If made public, people from all over the world can come and read your posts, watch your videos and look at your pictures, and they may even choose to make comments. As a result of the comment feature, blogs often lead to virtual debates or discussions between people who would have been unlikely to have the opportunity to interact otherwise (check out the lengthy discussion resulting from the BoingBoing blog's - which is the most popular blog according to Technorati - post about their poetry contest).



Video courtesy of Supershona

Blogs in education

According to Educause, current estimates indicate that approximately 50 million people world-wide are blogging. According to Dr. Scott McCleod's blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, Edublogs make up approximately 50,000 of those 50 million. The role of blogs in education is quickly becoming more and more visible, not to mention abundant. In fact, blogs are already a large part of the educational landscape as evidenced by the fact that blogging has not been a large topic of discussion in the New Media Consortium's and the Educause Learning Initiative's "Horizon Report" since 2005 (since blogs are considered social networking sites, issues discussed in the 2008 Horizon Report still could be helpful in a study of blogs).

One of the perceived benefits of blogging, whether for educational or personal purposes, is the opportunity for written reflection. Writing to learn while learning to write is a catchphrase used commonly by instructors and educational institutions (see the 2009 Write to Learn Conference site, Write to Learn software, and some sample Write to Learn activities). Blogs offer an interesting venue for educators and students to experiment with the write to learn philosophy (see Roots in the Sawdust: Writing to Learn across Disciplines edited by Anne Ruggles Gere). The social and communicative nature of blogging sites tends to favor student-to-student interaction, as evidenced by findings in the ECAR Research Study 8 that found that while approximately half of Social Networking Site users "communicate with classmates about course-related topics, [only] 5.5 % use them to communicate with instructors about course-related topics." Based on the belief that authentic learning, or the students' ability to learn by doing rather than listening, is the most beneficial way for students to acquire knowledge by making connections independently, blogging can be viewed as a way to integrate Web2.0 technologies into an authentic learning experience.

For instance, in a literature course with a writing component like UCONN's French Literature and Civilization course, adding a blog to discussion could be helpful. Students could be asked to consider instructor provided questions pertaining to the course material and then asked to write a response on the blog. This allows for other students and members of the community to appreciate others' perspectives on a given topic, which is a much more open and inclusive approach than having students respond privately to questions posted on a course management system site like Blackboard (see Nathalie Ettzevoglou's class blog). As mentioned in Carie Windham's article "Reflecting, Writing, and Responding: Why students blog," many students find that despite seeming daunting at first, blogging their ideas allows them to write longer, more personal posts. Another benefit of online discussion according to faculty and students in Windham's article is the security and longevity of information on the site. The information is not automatically removed at the end of the semester as is often the case with many CMS's.Another option would be to have students provide the questions for their classmates, allowing them to feel more ownership in the process and also giving them the opportunity to "write to learn" (see Jessica McBride's class blog). Each week a different student would be responsible for posting a thought-provoking and discussion-inducing question for students, and hopefully the community to consider.

In a foreign language class, an interesting idea could be for all of the students (depending on level) to create their own blogs. Students could write in the target language about topics of their own choosing or topics provided by the instructor which focus on grammar and vocabulary currently being taught, and hopefully the blog format would allow for others (including other students of foreign language and/or native speakers) to comment on the students' posts. Students could also be asked to sign up via RSS feed to different types of blogs created by native speakers of the target language, and when they feel comfortable to begin posting comments on these blogs. This could lead to more communication between students and native speakers as well as a better understanding of the culture(s) of the native speakers.

The use of a blog in a foreign language class would achieve many of the standards for foreign language teaching proposed and advocated by ACTFL. A blog would fulfill all of the written standards for communication ("engage in conversation, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, exchange opinions, understand and interpret written language on a variety of topics, present information, concepts and ideas to an audience of readers on a variety of topics"), would allow for students to be exposed to the culture(s) of speakers of the target language ("gain knowledge and understanding of other cultures") as proposed by the second C, Culture, would give the opportunity to compare their culture and the culture(s) of those who speak the target language, would make being part of a community in the target language in and beyond school possible as proposed by standard 5.1, and could certainly lead to students becoming life long learners as proposed by standard 5.2