What Educators are Saying about Blogs

Weblogs in Education: Bringing the World to the Liberal Arts Classroom

- Sarah Lohnes

A new, easy-to-use web publishing tool known as a weblog allows users to publish content to the web from their browsers, providing users with an unprecedented ability to participate in the internet community. In the true liberal arts tradition, teachers and students are using these tools to effectively break down the walls of the classroom, integrating teaching and learning with local and virtual communities.

Weblogs?

Weblogs, or "blogs," provide an easy way for non-technical users to publish content (writing, links, photos, etc.) to the web via a standard web browser. This content often takes the shape of chronological postings, much like journal entries, which are archived after a certain period of time. Over the past year and a half, weblogs have garnered a great deal of media attention, from The New York Times to The Guardian to Wired. They have been used primarily as personal journals or diaries, or as a vehicle for amateur journalists to self-publish on the web.

To further understand the place that weblogs occupy in today's society and their use as an educational tool, it is helpful to have a little more background. In 1999, Pyra Labs introduced Blogger, a weblog service that offered free creation and hosting of weblogs. Shortly thereafter, UserLand Software followed suit with the announcement of Manila, its server-based content management software. Both products allow users to publish material to the web using a simple browser-based interface: choose a template, fill in a form, click a button, and a weblog is born. Publishing a website is no longer the domain of the nerd; furthermore, it has become even easier than using traditional web publishing software to create and publish web pages to your personal web space. Indeed, the new weblog software is more than a neat technological trick; it is, in fact, the basis for the onslaught of personal weblogs that has captured the national media's attention. Full Story ...

Weblogs - The Possibilites are Limitless

NECC 2004 What are weblogs? Where can I find educational weblogs? What are the possibilities for weblogs in education? How can you create your own weblog? Posted by Anne Davis on 10/7/03; 3:19:45 PM from the dept. Discuss (1 response)

---

This Page was last update: Tuesday, October 7, 2003 at 3:19:45 PM
This page was originally posted: 10/7/03; 3:19:45 PM.
Copyright 2005 Weblogs: The Possibilities Are Limitless!

To Blog or Not to Blog - a webquest about blogs by Judith Cramer.