What is a blog?

Welcome to this BLOG workshop!

We hope you can learn a lot and put in practice all that might be useful for you in your classes.

Let's start by defining what a BLOG is...

The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Weblogs or blogs for short are simply Web based diaries. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger". Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. Often blogs focus on a particular area of interest. Blog systems are designed to be easy to set up and quick to use. If you can use e-mail, then you can use a blog. An important feature of blogs is that readers can add comments on each entry.

How does it work?

You add an entry to a blog and that entry appears at the top on the Web page that the blog produces, previous entries move down the page.

Readers can add comments on each entry so that you will have a kind of conversation in your blog.

What are the educational uses of blogs?

* Use it as a class diary for a specific group of students, as notice-board for a whole cohort, and even as a space for students to write themselves.

* Write a summary of each lesson.

* Add links to Web pages with exercises, explanations, interactive quizzes or demonstrations.

* The blog can be used by students who were at the lesson as a reminder of the main themes (and homework) and as a guide to carefully chosen and relevant Web pages.

* Students who had to miss all or part of the lesson can find a summary, possibly with text-book readings and some links that will enable the student to get the gist of the lesson and be able to join in a little more next week.

* It allows students to communicate themselves outside the boundaries of the classroom and the institution.

http://bodmas.org/blog/ilt-ideas/blogs-in-education-podcast/

What are the advantages of having students writing in a blog format?

* Students may care more about their work, knowing that it will be read by others.

* Students will belong to a larger community than their class, a community where they can share and develop ideas. They may enjoy having readers submit questions and comments to their blogs.

* Students will learn real-world technical skills.

http://www.blogherald.com/2006/12/21/using-blogs-to-teach/

What's a blog for?

In this video you will learn what a blog is for:

http://blogwritingcourse.com/