I guess the biggest challenge in starting a blog is that you have to make time to keep posting to it. Finding that time is not easy. In fact, sometimes it’s downright impossible. That being said, I read a really fantastic post by Steve Hargadon this morning about why Web 2.0 is the future of education. I was inspired (and if you read his posting I hope that you are too – even if you’re not not a “techie person” and feel like he’s speaking another language). So here I am… posting to my blog, eager and enthusiastic to help with the Web 2.0 learning process.
Many of the people reading this blog are probably here at my invitation. I truly appreciate you humoring me by clicking on the link to get here. Now that you’re here, I’m hoping that you will stay awhile (and come back often) to learn with me. I’m guessing that a few of you probably aren’t even really sure what the heck a blog is, despite the fact you’re here reading one. As a result, I thought that talking about blogs might be a really good place to start our virtual exploration of Web 2.0 tools.
Wikipedia offers a pretty comprehensive definition of blogs, if you care to read it. If you’re like me, you might want to keep it a bit more simplistic. Basically it goes like this: The creator of the blog writes an entry or post to discuss their thoughts, feelings, etc. This post is published on the Internet using an easy-to-use, web-based program (often free of charge). Other people read the post. Sometimes people respond to the post by clicking on the “Comment” or “Reply” link at the bottom of the post. The author of the original post can respond to the replies. And so it continues… I really like the way Jeremiah Owyang describes the blogger as being the “keynote speaker” of the blog. It’s a simple definition that makes a lot of sense and might help you understand the differences between blogs and some of the other tools out there.
Probably one of the very best, easy-to-understand descriptions (and under three minutes long, nonetheless!) is the one put together by the CommonCraft Show. They truly do explain things “in plain English” for everyone to understand. Please click on the video link below to watch and learn. Come back soon for a discussion about how we might use blogs in our classrooms and libraries!
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April 28th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Thank you sharing about the post of Steve Hargadon. Well, i need to admit that it is really hard to keep posting. In my own opinion, i am busy studying.