About blogging

An introduction to blogging

"Every reader is a writer, every writer is a reader." --Jay Rosen


Blogging
What is blogging or blog? It is short for web-log. They started out as a diary that a gap student may have written on their travels. The student can settle in a café and put thir blog on-line for the relations back home to read. You can include pictures and text. Have a look at Boris Johnson’s blog http://www.boris-johnson.com/index.html

How to blog
You do not need to know how to create a web site. You register with a blog supplier (free)and then just fill in the on-line form with the details of the blog and hey presto – the whole world can read your ramblings.
One supplier is http://www.blogger.com/start . You can set up a blog in minutes.
There are some excellent instructions on how to set up a blog at http://www.geographypages.co.uk/blogs.htm

Blogs for education
There are many teachers who use blogs for their teaching. Look at the Geoblog pages site, at (http://www.geographypages.co.uk/blogpages.htm) supported by the Royal Geographical Society.

Plenty of ideas on blogging are here.given at http://anvil.gsu.edu/EduBlogInsights/2004/10/05#a668
some examples are
You might like to create a reflective, journal type blog to...

* reflect on your teaching experiences.
* keep a log of teacher-training experiences.
* write a description of a specific teaching unit.

You can encourage your students (either on your weblog using the comments feature or on their own weblogs) to blog...

* their reactions to thought-provoking questions.
* their reactions to photos you post.
* journal entries.
* results of surveys they carry out as part of a class unit.
* their ideas and opinions about topics discussed in class.

Caution
Be careful about publishing details of your school work on the web.
Keep the site secure – you do not have to make it public.
Do not mention the school name - it can be anonymous.
Pupils will use blogs to bully their classmates.

The Future
If you understand blogging you can now go on to read about pod-casting,

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