For Class Discussion (to prepare in advance):
Among many and evolving web 2.0 tools, blogging should be the first one worth being discussed. Blogging has changed web publishing in a radical manner, and it has revolutionized news publishing, marketing, and even journalism. Class lecture will go over good principles/practices of blog writing and in the lab, students will create a blog using blogger.com (should send the URL to the instructor via gmail by SU midnight).
Among many and evolving web 2.0 tools, blogging should be the first one worth being discussed. Blogging has changed web publishing in a radical manner, and it has revolutionized news publishing, marketing, and even journalism. Class lecture will go over good principles/practices of blog writing and in the lab, students will create a blog using blogger.com (should send the URL to the instructor via gmail by SU midnight).
- Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Blogs
- Reflecting, Writing, and Responding: Reasons Students Blog by Carie (Windham) Page
Blogging Tools - As a group/pair, select one blogging tool from below or any popular one, then post a needed information about the tool to the course Google Site.
- Blogger - Free weblog publishing tool from Google, for sharing text, photos and video
- WordPress - A popular open source content management system focusing on web standards, and usability. A nice how-to screencast by Molly McDonald on setting up a WordPress blog (10 min)
- Joomla - Another popular free, open-source content management system (CMS)
- Drupal - Another popular free open-source CMS
- MoveableType - Another popular free open-source CMS
- Tumbler - Another popular blogging service
- Some sites track blogging tools popularity (e.g., top ten comparisons, techsoup.org * Be aware, ranking relies on subjective criteria, but still very useful)
Further Resources (for those who are interested in exploring further about blogging - these sources provide many excellent examples, ideas, or templates)
- Edublogs Award site
- Tom Barrett’s Interesting Ways series (tips and resources for using popular tools for education)
- Blogging Policies and Resources Wiki by Bud Hunt
- Blogger for Word - Can post right to your Blogger from Word
- Blogger for Word 2007 and 2010 - Help site for posting blogs from Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010
- The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging…And When to Use Each One
- Great blog post example from Will Richardson on: “Why Johnny’s Professor Can’t Read”
- WIU Blog Listings - List of WIU related blogs such as: rec center, grad school, featured student blogger, etc. Utech runs a blog through Wordpress.
- Which blogging tool is your favorite, why? Which feature(s) did you find most useful for teaching or learning?
- Any difficulty or problems experienced in publishing contents or using the tool? Did it make you think about challenges in adopting and leveraging blogging?
For adoption or implementation within an organization, what is important? - For what purposes do you plan to use your blog? Class lecture showed possible applications, such as portfolio, content/file management, class discussion, etc.
36 comments:
I cannot say that I have a particularly "favorite" tool. Blogging overall is an interesting experience. For me, the purpose of blogging is to communicate, and the number of features a platform has does not make me favor one over the other. A blog with more features might be of more use to individuals attempting to garner more viewers. Individuals who blog for fun may enjoy the extra features of WordPress to enhance not only their blogging experience, but the experience of their users. Blogs used for portfolios should be simple and uncomplicated - easy for individuals to find and read information. Blogger provides excellent simplicity for this purpose. For educational purposes, simple blogs may be easier for institutions testing out the technology. For progressive institutions, WordPress offers excellent opportunities for interactivity between classrooms through web hosting. Teachers instructing multiple classes can increase collaboration between classes. Blogging has great potential in education.
I really have no favorite when it comes to blogging tools. In all honesty the only time that I have used one is for this class. Blogger seems very easy to use and to deal with. They have tutorials to help you to learn the blogging process. With anything new there will be a little difficulty. With the blogger it has been a pretty strait forward easy process. If you can’t figure out how to do something it can easily be assessed online by searching for it or by going through the the tutorials. I really do not have any plans for using my blog in the near future for anything but this class. I have never had much of a use for having my own blog. For using in an organization it is important that everyone that needs to has access to the blog. This way everyone can use and edit the blog.
My experience with blogging is very limited it only consists of these entries and the two projects from this last week. I would say that blogger is one of the easiest to use for me. The google site one we use I do not get along with. I am still lost as to how to properly add a video. Blogger is easy to use for it was step-by-step guidance. It has a tutorial as well. However Blogger it does have a lot of features that at first can be a little overwhelming. One of my favorite parts about it would have to be the templates, the possibility to add code and the gadgets available. The fact that the blog can be created with a gmail account is a nice yet disturbing feature. I do not like how my blog looks it does not really appeal. Any of the rest of the blogging tools could be used for teaching or to learn from, it is a matter of preference and occasionally money. Overall it was a new experience and I am glad I was able to learn about it. Right now bloggs are not for me but maybe I will find them of use.
i personally dont have any favorite blogging tool, i have come across a few but have not tried using any of them. i know they can be helping alot but i have not had any intrest in trying any of them out yet. My first experience with any blogging tool is in this IDT 351 class. This assignment we just completed about word press. This is the first time i am hearing about word press and don't really have any previous experience in it. But overrall, i think that it is a very good blogging tool because it is not only just for blogging but it can be used for other things, it has other various things too. One can really use this blogging site and other various blogging sites too can be very helpful when need be. I have heard about google docs, quite frankly i have used it a few times but to write and edit notes. I personally have not used it for blogging purposes but i am looking forward to using it later on for that matter. As i have learned there are thousands upon thousands of bloggs that people utilize everyday for numerous purposes. These blogs can be used for a lot of things in an organization, i have seen it used/implemented for various things but overall, I plan on learning more and more about these blogs and using/implement them in my portfolio, resumes etc.
The only blog that I have ever used is the current blog we are using for this particular class. From the times that I have used it I can honestly say I actually really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed how you are able to customize the blog in any way. In a sense it reminded me of an easier way to set up a website. Similar to IDT 250, you are able to customize the blog in any way you can think of. You can even go as far as to change the code on the styling sheet to customize it even more. Another thing that I like is the fact that a blog can be used to discuss any topic that you, as the maker, choose to discuss. The fact that a blog can be as personal or as non-personal as you would like for it to be. That along with all of the awesome gadgets makes this one of my favorite new found Web tools.
I really have not used a blog before this class however; I think that I will use this blog for commenting on my course work from my IDT classes. I think it would be nice to have a historical record of course work so I can look back and see what I have learned. I think that it would also be nice to have my blog displayed for future usage so that IDT students later down the road can read and post comments on my blog and perhaps take something from it, may it be experience, course reactions, or just some general knowledge form the course. I may even use this as a piece of portfolio information since it will be something I used in class. I can also include this tool in my resume as part of a “tool kit” of applications I know how to use, which could be beneficial when looking for a job.
So far my favorite blogging tool would have to be the only one I've used so far, Google's Blogger. It's simple and easy to use. Help functions can quickly answer any questions you might have when you get stuck. The high level of customization allows for your blog to be as personal, impersonal, formal or as informal as you like. The connectivity allowed by subscribing to and following threads is the most interesting feature to me at this point and I hope to explore it further in the future. I’ve had an interest in blogging for some time now but this is my first experience with blogging tools. On the other hand the research I did on Joomla made me somewhat hesitant to try that tool until I have a strong grasp of some simpler tools such as blogger. Joomla has a wealth of features, however the fact the service requires payment after 30 days makes me wonder how much I could get done with the knowledge that I have at this point. All in all I think I will be using Blogger not only in this class but for my own personal interests as well.
Excellent reflections class. Nicole's plan to use this as her portfolio work, course comments, etc. are excellent. Surely can apply Richardson's suggestions to make postings and comments proper (no complaints, etc.). That type of blogging really stretches your course experiences, which normally ends with the semester end.
Devin, video can be easily inserted by, from the particular page, going to the Insert (top left menu) > Video at the bottom of the pull down menu > can see you can insert YouTube or Google video directly. I am sure, there is a way to embed HTML code and you can copy embed codes from various video tool sites.
What's amazing and promising is that many of these tools are open source, which means, if you continuously improve your knowledge in Web development, HTML/CSS, database, and some scripting language, you can customize and change many things to make it really work for any organization. As postings show, adoption level varies, and when people can see benefits clearly, will jump in.
I haven't really experience blogging all that much until this class. Blogging really became interesting to me for the fact I did not know it could be use so well for educational purposes. The Blogger program that we are currently using seems very simple and straight forward to use. Blogging could show how you express yourself all over the world. Its like your own personal internet journal. This can also help stay connected to people for instance classmate and there idea for different such as projects and different opinions of things right from your home. Everyone should learn how to blog its one of life many wonderful things to learn for many different ages.
In my past searches, I would research something that I think would important to me and search and search until I find what I'm looking for. Doing my research, I would sometime come across a blog of what I'm looking for. In the past, reading a blog was boring to me, because some of them would be to long, to short, or just not enough of information, in order to find the answer to my question. Even though I haven't created blog before, I really wouldn't know what to write. Now I'm understanding the reason for it. I would definitely use a blog for my career.
I don’t really use these blogging sites but when I search for gifs on the internet most of my favorites are from Tumblr. I like how the user has a topic and they emphasize it by using gifs(Animated Pictures) and it seems most of the topics from this website are a reference to pop culture. It looks like the most difficult aspects of blogging in Tumblr would be finding those gifs to use for the blogs, it use to be difficult because the user has to find a source, cut out a clip from that source, and find a way to put it in a loop. That procedure has been a bit simpler now but it is still annoying going about to find it. To be honest I cannot see a big organization implementing this blog site, because as stated before it seems really pop culture heavy. The only organizations I see using this would be comic book companies, gaming companies, and maybe some movie companies. I can see the site use for class lectures and it would be pretty cool. The teacher can go over subjects and at the end or somewhere in the blog there can be a gif, giving the students a visual perspective of the subject. Class discussions would also be good and it can be fun seeing people little gif supporting their claim, that’s if they want to add gif of course. Tumblr seems really fun and if I do get really into blogging I can see this being my primary blogging site.
I do not blog, so most of these were unfamiliar to me. However, I find Tumblr the most interesting. Although, I do not find it to be a very educational site. It mostly seems to be used to display images. However, I could potentially see it being used in the educational system. Tumblr allows commenting on the posts, so it would be an interactive tool if teacher were to pick it for use in their classes.
I have never really blogged before but if I had to choose a site I would probably pick a site like WordPress or joomla. I think using blogging in classes could be a great help in education. Teachers could post something and require students to do research and comment back of even if they have questions they could post to the class blog.
I really have never blogged before so my knowledge about blogging is very restricted. i have never really thought about blogging but it could be good for the class room because it allows for people to hide about how smart they are. on the other hand blogging could be used in a bad way if pictures of people get posted that don't allow them to get a job. i plan to use my blog to make people educated about working out and how to stay organized so you can workout daily.
I have only really blogged for my high-school journalism class, and that only had me writing up the posts and putting them in the blog itself; I did not maintain it. Nonetheless, I have considered having my own blog.
I decided to use blogger because I actually plan to use it outside of class eventually. My plan with this blog is to learn how to build and manage a blog so that I may eventually have a blog where I know, from the start, what I am doing. This new blog would go along with a YouTube channel I plan to make, and they will run side by side. The current blog, however, will be a playground that gets updated from time to time while I learn how things work, a place to test different tools and layouts.
I have already had some trouble with the blog. While I got almost everything I needed done without a problem, I could not figure out how to update the “About Me” section. Apparently the book should tell me what to do, but that is currently being shipped, so I was forced to look for a way on my own.
I did find the “Pages,” “Translate,” and “Poll” gadgets interesting from an instructional perspective. The “Pages” gadget allows everything to be organized in different ways, such as year, month, or topic. It mostly just makes things easier to find. The “Translate” gadget allows the entire blog to be translated into different languages, which is good for people trying to learn those languages, because it gives them material that they can easily check to see if they read it right. The problem with that is that translations themselves may not be entirely accurate. The “Poll” gadget is good for assessing people’s progress or understanding of material, therefore seeing where everybody stands.
Really, blogs can be used for many things, and it is very easy to see how they can be used for educational purposes.
Honestly I am not a big fan of blogging so I really can’t say I have a favorite. However blogger seemed like a very easy tool to use. One tool I found interesting was the translate tool. I could see different ways this could be used for educational purposes. For example, if a foreign student wanted to take a particular course that was taught in a language he or she might not know. Publishing content was relatively easy enough. I don’t like how the blogger edit mode is completely different than what the site itself looks like to the viewers.
I don’t really know what I will use this site for yet. I would say a portfolio but I plan on make my own personal website for that. If I decide to consider blogging in the future I could always add my own personal blog page to my site.
Everyone's previous blog use, posting, and commenting experiences seem to be 'less' than I expected. Omoruyi's and Haley's posting made me think about the true identity of these different tools. People classify tumblr as a blogging tool, and I have realized, blogging tools like Tumblr or Wiki tool like Wetpaint have evolved to act more like a virtual community, of course with using main features mostly found in blogging tools (that's why they classify Tumblr as a blogging tool). With this said, I want everyone to look at Jake's and Jonathan's post. For classroom or personal portfolio use, their posts include many good implications. Per Jonathan's post, my thought is, the chronological thread of most blogging tools may not fit the best for your portfolio needs, but in terms of incorporating media or interactivity (comments, links, etc), blogging will beat static we sites. My final comment is, many seem to underestimate the utility and potential benefit of using blogging more actively. Even if you don't plan to become a long time blogger, I suggest and encourage everyone to invest heavily, at least for a month or so, or for important school/class projects to really have a full grasp of Blogging tools' main features and potentials (Blogger, WordPress can be two most popular and best choices).
Blogs are surprisingly easy to use. They require minimum technical knowledge and are quickly and easily created and maintained. Unlike many traditional Web sites, they are flexible in design and can be changed relatively easily. Best of all, students will find them convenient and accessible via home or library computers.
For example, a class blog opens the opportunity for students to discuss topics outside of the classroom. With a blog, every person has an equal opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions. Students have time to be reactive to one another and reflective. Teachers can also bring together a group of knowledgeable individuals for a given unit of study for students to network and conference with on a blog.
Another example is that blogs provide a collaboration between teachers and students where can work to further develop writing or other skills with the advantage of an instant audience. Teachers can offer instructional tips, and students can practice and benefit from peer review. They also make online mentoring possible. For example, a class of older students can help a class of younger students develop more confidence in their writing skills. Students can also participate in cooperative learning activities that require them to relay research findings, ideas, or suggestions.
Blogs are surprisingly easy to use. They require minimum technical knowledge and are quickly and easily created and maintained. Unlike many traditional Web sites, they are flexible in design and can be changed relatively easily. Best of all, students will find them convenient and accessible via home or library computers.
For example, a class blog opens the opportunity for students to discuss topics outside of the classroom. With a blog, every person has an equal opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions. Students have time to be reactive to one another and reflective. Teachers can also bring together a group of knowledgeable individuals for a given unit of study for students to network and conference with on a blog.
Another example is that blogs provide a collaboration between teachers and students where can work to further develop writing or other skills with the advantage of an instant audience. Teachers can offer instructional tips, and students can practice and benefit from peer review. They also make online mentoring possible. For example, a class of older students can help a class of younger students develop more confidence in their writing skills. Students can also participate in cooperative learning activities that require them to relay research findings, ideas, or suggestions.
For this class, I created a blog promoting discussion of technology as applicable to teaching, training and learning. This is so that I have a space to respond to the prompts in class. For this project, I used Blogger and found it mostly easy to use. The interface is friendly and for a quick setup, I haven't need to explore a lot of advanced features. For real world applications, I intend to use a blog to complement my portfolio. I will likely use something like WordPress or Joomla,as I see a lot of employers looking for experience in those powerful platforms. So, in addition to gaining experience with the tools to meet the publishing needs of others, I also like that the blog platform gives me a place introduce new materials being added to the portfolio and will give me a chance to infuse my personality as I discuss the projects...which as a someday/potential freelancer plays a large role in how I brand myself to future clients.
Great points about killing two birds with one stone. Today's employers are indeed looking for these skills!
My favorite blogging tool would have to be Tumblr. I found that it might not be the most appropriate blogging tool in regards to education, because of how most people view it as a social media website. However, it does have some useful features that could help people teach and learn information. The most obvious feature would be the search feature, because you are able to search for materials by using keywords such as “Instructional Design” or even something as broad as “Science”. The benefit of searching broader is that it pulls up related subjects to what you originally searched, but narrower searches tend to give you just what you’re looking for right away. Tumblr has millions of users that provide different types of materials, such as: audio, videos, links, etc., and you are able to follow users that inspire you. Tumblr also makes it easy to sort through everything you’ve gathered, because you are able to like or re-blog certain posts that you found interesting and want to look at later. I’ve heard of Tumblr before taking this course, but I never actually signed up for it until I chose to do it for the assignment. I discovered that is simple and fun to use, and I may use it to showcase things I’ve done in the future.
I have never had a blog before and so far I do not like Blogger that much. I feel like I spend a lot of time clicking buttons and playing with things to not be satisfied with what I did. I think for education purposes like this blog it is a good idea to let people be connected ad see other peoples comments. If you had your own blog, it would be a great way to show people what you are doing. I have never gotten into the blogging trend. As I play with blogging, I think it would be a great tool to find other people that were interested in the same thing I see what they think about the same topic. Maybe not liking Blogger is the layout that I picked or that I don't know how to use it. I am not sure how to get it customized the way I like it and I find myself on the same pages repeatedly trying to change the same thing. It is not user friendly. I hope to be able to learn more about this tool as I think it would be useful if I knew more about it.
I would have to say that wordpress is my favorite blogging tool. I say this because when I went to sign up for wordpress it said the email address had already been taken. So I signed in and I was please to find it easy to edit and change themes and content. I plan to use my blog to share information with others about a certain hobby that interests me. I find just the nature of blogging is a good medium for instruction because viewers can post questions in the comments and the answers to those questions can be posted in future blogs. I was not a interested in tumblr, because it it mostly about pictures and videos. I already use youtube for that medium.
After using blog more and more this week I have found that it can be useful in personal and educational ways. I feel I will mostly use blogs for educational purposes because it is a great way to connect with people. For teachers, I can see how blogging can be an important tool to use. I have no favorite blog tool simply because I have not worked with them enough yet. I would really like to see more blog tools used effectively in the educational world because I believe it can make learning a lot easier and also makes it easier connecting with other people such as students, co-workers, etc. I will continue to broaden my horizons on blogging but for now I have no real favorite.
I would say that Google Blogger is my favorite, but I have not really used many blogging tools. It makes it easy to change the layout and add different gadgets that fit your blog. You can also customize the web address of your blog. Implementing blogger as a teaching help could work you can create many different posts that the students could comment on. The purpose of my blog will be for my portfolio and resume. I will place the work that I have done to show potential employers my skills and past work experiences.
• My favorite blogging tool is word Press. Word Press is very user-friendly blog system and and very easy to use. Also, it can be used as a regular site, which you can update without any knowledge of coding. Word Press has many good features that makes the learning easier and would engage students to learn. It comes with different home page layouts, with a lot of custom options, such as unlimited color schemes, fonts, tons of templates etc. The theme is responsive and adapts to different screen size. So the site will look good on any device. Teacher through Word Press can upload documents to the Media Library to send to colleagues and administrators, or post them directly to the site for students and parents to download, and can engage their student through Word Press by invite students to contribute to a group project or blog. I plan to use word press for create a portfolio website. Word press gives opportunity to create any type of website the user want, like portfolio website or class website.
I have chosen to use Google Blogger as my platform for my multiple blogs. The main blog I will have will be about my music production, I have chosen this as I know it will be a topic that I will keep updated. My music means a lot to me and I would like to get people interested and following me before I keep producing content/music. I will also have a second blog, the second blog will be my portfolio. This will be used for potential employers to see my work and gauge whether it interests them or not. Judging by traffic flow on each of these blogs will give me the analytical information I need to see what I can do to increase popularity and create better content. That's my view on how I plan to use Google Blogger.
My favorite blog is tumblr because I have been using it for years and for me it was the easiest to figure out. I am always on tumblr because it is a fun interactive site that I feel can be both educational and something that is used for entertainment and personal use.The most useful part for learning is probably the ability to tag your post. If you tag your post someone can search for that tag and see your post and anything else with that post leading to many other options and opinions on that topic. You can also follow other blogs that show up in that tag allowing you to see more from that user and probably that topic. Tumblr is really a place to share the things that you like with other people and to communicate with others. You can put your own work out there for others to see and get your name out there. It is not very difficult to post it was easy to figure it out because it was at the very top of the dashboard. Also liking and reblogging other users post is easy to do and following other members is also easy to do.
I think that Joomla! was a fair tool for blogging. The interface requires a little bit of a learning curve, but it has a lot of potential if you want to grow your blog into something more. Joomla! has many extensions available to users. These extensions add a lot of functionality to a site, depending on what you need and how you use it. For example, Joomla! allows you to make content visable to all users, but it also allows you to set up premium access to specific subscribers. This is important if you want to generate more than ad revenue. With a large enough following, you can draw people in with public content, then collect subscription fees from your premium content. You could start with a simple blog, but expand your site into a CMS or LMS using these extensions. I think that the ability to grow your site from a simple blog into a full blown curriculum is worth the learning curve. If a blogger gets a big enough following, they should really consider Joomla! or a similar tool to expand their online presence.
I try the blogger and wordpress, they are really similar. But I have to say I like wordpress more for that the interface of wordpress make me more comfortable. Wordpress is easy to follow and understand for me. By posting blog posts, you can teach other many things and then separate them by using different pages. It gives visitors a clearly understand what they are looking at and easy to find what they want to see. Also I can use the users.php to control everything about my website. I may use the wordpress just for class staffs for that I don’t like to write things anyway. I may write something and post them on my friend’s website, just for fun. I don’t want to manage a blog by myself and to write things to share with others.
I do not have a favorite blogging tool because I have not searched enough about them and also this is going to be the first time that I have a blog. But after searching more about WordPress, I learned how easy it is to use. You can create any type of website you want such as a personal blog, a professional portfolio, a business website.
My favorite blogging tool would have to be WordPress. Its clean design allows users to create a blog with ease. I have used WordPress several times for different classes, and was able to create a blog fairly quickly. I also like that they provide themes to choose from, so that you can personalize your blog without having to take the time to design and code things for yourself. For education purposes, WordPress for blogging can be used to share ideas and topics back and forth between family, friends, students, faculty, etc.
Great posts from everyone. I can clearly see, WordPress (Asmaa, Sabrina, Gu), Blogger (Kathryn, Joe, Nick), Tumblr (Courtney, Melissa), and even Joomla (Jimmy). Wanting to explore more is fine and good (Lucia, Garrett).
In class, you guys will assume members of an L&D Department, I will ask people to compete over which tool, so be ready to explain why.
Like to add, see Nick's plan to add analytics, and most importantly, success will depend on your business and content plan that includes sharing, invitation, collaboration, and not just features or functionality. I also encourage your comments to incorporate tutorial creating experience on Google Site.
I'd have to say my favorite blog tool would be Tumblr, because it's the one I'm most familiar with and I've been introduced to a plethora of new ideas and people through it. Often times if I find some information from someone I like, they often have a Tumblr and I can use it to continue to stay updated.
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