What´s a Blog

What´s a Blog?

Spanish

They have become a simple but widely used communication tool in the last few years. Lots of investigations and searchers regard this new cmc tool as innovative and really helpful in any field it may be used. The number of blogs doubles every five months ( El Pais, Abril 2006). Technorati counted 28,4 millions in february 2006. Blogs, for instance are making changes in the editorial field, blogs get together small audiences, and their authors start having a place in the editorial world. Last year, ´Diary of a fat woman` (Hernan Casciari), was chosen the best blog in the world by Deustche Welle and afterwards this blog was published by Plaza and janes as a novel.This phenomenon has even a litterate prize in USA, Lulu Blooker Prize. On the other hand and far as education is concern, weblogs are being regarded as a very useful educational tools , which are also making several changes as we can understand when Richardson comments (cited in Downes, 2004), ´this ( the blogging process) just seems to me to be closer to the way we learn outside of school, and I don´t see those things happening anywhere in traditional education`.

Definition and characteristics

A weblog or blog, a term which is not yet found in any dictionary (soon included in the next Webster´s editions) comes from a sailing term, log-book or log. The term log related to computers refers to events, activities or accesses registers, etc, and when these registers are in a Web context , then we can talk of Weblogs. In fact the union of web + log is what we know as blog or weblog. Sometimes it is not easy to define, there are people who believe a blog format to be like a newspaper.

Weblogs, then have been widely defined. For instance, Jorn Barger, who coined the term ´ weblog` in 1997 quotes ;

"a webpage where a weblogger 'logs' all the other webpages she finds interesting." (Blood, 2004)

also

´Weblogs are log-books, and they consist on chronological sent posts, which have a link at the end in order to add comments´Technically they are like webpages, but they include a special software or code which allows them to act as an archive of articles. (Walker and Mortesen, 2002)

and

´Weblog es una página web en la que el usuario o un grupo de ellos van dando

cuenta, por estricto orden cronológico y con un lenguaje más o menos informal,

de las noticias, reportajes, artículos u otro tipo de contenidos que encuentran en

la Red y que cree pueden ser de interés para el resto de los internautas`

(HISPANET, 2003)

Peter Merholz (2001) defines them as time-based, a diary of ideas and believes that a key element

of the weblog is the feedback

The definition of blogging given by bloggers , as opposed to those offered by external commentators,

is that blogging is something defined by format and process, not by comment. In their purest form, the

core of what has been called ´personal publishing`, but in educational contexts , blogs again become

something else.(Downes, 2004)

Types of blogs

There are different ways to classify blogs, from general classifications to very exaustive ones. The truth

is that according to content, interests or topics blogs deal with, we can find lots of different kinds of

blogs and classifications.

There are different blogs clssification, like the university of Vrginia (Virginia-edu, 2004). They

categorise blogs according to they theme or purpose of them; Personal Weblogs, Topical Weblogs,

Thoughtful Weblogs, Political Weblogs Corporate Weblogs and format.

Lamshed, R M, Berry y l. Armstrong, (2002 Blogs) categorise blogs according to the kind of content

they offer into two types; filter blogs, which filter vast amount of information available on the Internet

and offer that one considered interesting or useful for the audience and the journal style blog, with

a more free form and open structure and probably more subjective because offers the authors opinions

and thoughts.

Also there are according to Wikipedia ;

Collaborative (also collective or group)W ritten by more than one person about a specific

topic (Such as MetaFilter or Slashdot), Eclectic, a variant from slashdot but focused on specific topics

(such a ImpactLab's). Partner (collaboration on multi-section documents)blog site which has a parallel

web page or wiki ,Directory, they often collect numerous web sites with interesting content (they

shouldn´t be confused with weblog directories, such as BlogWise, and specialist directories like Britblog)

On the other hand , there are weblogs specialized not on text but on different forms of presentation ,

these blogs called formats, can be specialized on images, (Photoblogs) or videos ( videoblog), or

sounds (such as moblogs (mobile blog))

Also, Campbell (2003) believes that blogs can be a support in a EL2 class and classifies them into,

Tutor blog , which is run by the tutor for the learners, class blog, which is the result of the

collaborative effort of an entire class and learner blogs, that are either run by individual learners

themselves or by small collaborative groups of learners.

Blogs as an educational tool

According to Maqués (2001) there are two kinds of blogs with educational purposes, ´personal`and ´educactional`, the first created by a teacher, with comments, points of view about different topics or news, what happens in the classroom or in the school, comments on didactic strategies etc,etc. the ´educactional` blog is similar to an educational web page, where teachers and students can have their resources, activicties dates, etc,etc. and they can inform about different aspects like: the day to day classroom blog, a blog with that academic year projects, a blog with the best group works, or a blog for the students parents,

Baggentun (2006) believes that students when working with blogs, use disruptive technology to support their learning activities. She finds blogs very interesting because they are an example of best practice use of ICT. She states that the students have ownership of their of tool, and thus in many respect their own learning. ´They are writing and expressing themselves whenever they feel like. Not only when they are told to`.

Pros and Cons

There are good reasons why blogs should be regarded as a educational tool, in fact is being very popular lately among educators. Weblogs field is, a tool which still has to show all its good educational possibilities and results. As positive points, we can pint point;

Richardson (2004) considering educational blogs as a genre of writing , thinks that they may ´have a great value in terms of developing all sort of critical thinking, writing skills and information literacy among other things`. He believes blogs to a) reflect what students are writing and thinking as they write and think it, b) carry on writing about a topic over a sustained period of time, may be a lifetime, and c) engage readers and audience in a sustained conversation that leads to further writing and thinking.

Weblogs use activites where team work, discussion, dialogues, searching for information and the interaction with the real world outside the classroom is present all the time. Learning in the students close development area is possible thanks to social interaction. (Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning and development)

-Blogs are characterized as tools with which to think about what you are researching, its values, connections and links to other aspects of the world (Mortensen & Walker, 2002)

Ferdig and Trammell (2004) think (based on educational theories of of Vygotski (1978)) that blogs support social interaction while giving students full control and ownership over their online content. They believe there is a natural tendency for reflection and analysis on the part of the student, feedback systems are integral to the blogging interface. They also stated that the contextualisation of learning through hypertext links to other materials encourages revisiting and revising of learnt concepts, and in consequence they enrich the learning process.

Baggentun (2003) states blogs positive sides after her experience in the Telepeers project. She considers blogs to have the function of a personal, but public, learning log for reflection, to be a very suitable tool to demonstrate one´s own learning progress and personal development. The public nature opens up for feedback leading to collaboration and even building of communities. Also, as blogs are owned by the learners themselves, they have total ownership of their own learning tool, and they can customize and personalize it the way they want to. And as she says; ´ It is furthermore an easy tool to use, which means that it gives a powerful tool in the hands of both novices and experts bringing agency (a tool to influence and express one self through) to a large group of people.

On the contrary , weblogs may tend to be too subjective. Weblog offer information that may or may not be completely certain, also it is necessary to have time enough to have them updated, and to answer comments. As Alvarez Garcia (2005) these may be reasons why blogs may be just be abandoned.

Trafford (2005) mentions a common complaint about blogs because they may contain a diversity of thoughts so it may become difficult to find relevant points and also, the danger of mental proliferation, so he thinks that authors are required to make a bigger effort to keep contribution relevant, an supported/guided by tutors.

Also, Downes (2004) thinks educators may face a dilemma, when answering questions such as, ´ What happens when a free-flowing medium such as a blogging interacts with the more restrictive domains of the educational system?` or, ´What happens when the necessary rules and boundaries are imposed on students who are writing blogs, when grades are assigned in order to get students to write at all, and when posts are monitored to ensure that they do not say the wrong things?`. He believes that although blogging has a significant and worthwhile impact on education, this impact does not come automatically nor comes without risks.

Future Trends

Toral (2005) regards evauates weblogs under a technical point of view , and considers that weblogs have advantages over LCMS, as flexiblity or adaptability, although LCMS can provide gestion tools like students lists, students results etc. She believes that the future trends to follow are;

´Dada la posibilidad técnica de integrar un weblog dentro del LCMS del que dispongan las instituciones educativas, de manera sencilla y a muy bajo coste, éste será el camino que , probablemente, seguirá en su mayoría.`

Williams (2004), writes;

´In short, blogs have the potential, at least, to be a truly transformational technology in that they provide students with a high level of autonomy while simultaneously providing opportunity for greater interaction with peers. A blogging tool would be a valuable addition, therefore, to any LMS.`

Baggetum (2003) invites us to think about what we, as teachers, can learn about how to organize education from the blogging and the communication technology phenomenom which youth is using nowadays. Something she relates to a more collaborative way to learn and teach.