What is a blog?
Comments(0) According to the experts, a blog is:
- “a website that is up-dated frequently, with new material posted at the top of the page†(Blood).
- “basically an easy way to publish content on the Internet [because] it allows you to put that content online without needing to know things like Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) or coding languages” (Richardson).
- “a term used to describe a web site that publishes content on a regular and ongoing basis. It can be a personal diary, a chronicle of commentaries on various issues and topics, or a creative journal, to name just a few” (Boan).
- “A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world” (Blogger).
and the most creative description goes to Mortensen:
- “A true-born child of the computer medium, the weblog may have its roots in the research journal, the ship’s log, the private diary and the newspapers, all at the same time. But like a mongrel hunting the dark alleys of the digital city, the weblog is nothing if not adaptive and unique at the same time. No fancy thoroughbred this … but a bastard child of all personal writing, breeding wildly as it meets others of its ilk online.”
But what does all that mumbo-jumbo really mean? And what’s the difference between blog the noun and to blog the verb? And perhaps most importantly, what possible relevance does any of this have to teaching to the standards and raising student achievement (read, improving test scores)?
Patience, Grasshopper. These answers will reveal themselves to you in time (which may or may not be by the end of this workshop).
First, let’s look at a few blogs to get a feel for this genre of online writing. I’ve separated the links below into four groups. In your assigned teams, review all of the links assigned to your group. Then determine as a team the common characteristics of the blogs you’ve reviewed. Be as specific as possible as you identify common elements in the blogs (and don’t be afraid to be goofy, too.)
After your group has reviewed all its blogs, one team member should click on the Comments link to post your group’s list of characteristics. Be sure you identify which group of blogs you are referencing in your comment.
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4