If a tree falls...

The Cat.

Could Education take the 'Blog' out of Blogging?

Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, states Fielder (2004), present "a new and powerful toolkit for the support of collaborative and individual learning that adheres to the patterns of contemporary information-intensive work and learning outside of formal educational settings." But what about inside the traditional educational context? According to Downes (2004), this is where the problems start to occur. He asks the question, "What happens when a free-flowing medium such as blogging interacts with the more restrictive domains of the educational system? What happens when the necessary rules and boundaries of the system 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 don’t say the wrong things?

It seems apparent, says Downes (2004), that "although blogging can and does have a significant and worthwhile educational impact, this impact does not come automatically and does not come without risks. As many writers have noted, writing a weblog appears in the first instance to be a form of publishing, but as time goes by, blogging resembles more and more a conversation. And for a conversation to be successful, it must be given a purpose and it must remain, for the most part, unconstrained.

Ben's Blog Navigation Tip: What is the Multimedia and the World Wide Web for Education Course Blog Feed?

The Multimedia and the World Wide Web for Education Course Blog Feed is a subscription to the subject Blog in the University of Melbourne LMS.

All you need to do is:

1. click on RSS in the right-hand column of the subject Blog
2. copy the feed website address
3. select a new page element in Blogger
   
4. select the Third Party/ HTML page element
   
5. paste the address in to the space available
   
6. move the page element to where you'd like it in the blog

Presto! You have an up to date feed from the LMS to your blog. i.e. Ben's Blog shows the last 5 entries made on the subject blog. Each time there is a new post, it is updated on Ben's Blog.

You can establish a feed from Ben's Blog to your blog or website by subscribing to Posts (Atom) at the bottom of Ben's Blog.

To write or not to write?

The benefits of blogging are well worth it, says Downes (2004), " if for no other reason than that blogs encourage students to write." It is this "genre of writing", says Richardson (2004), which may have "great value in terms of developing all sorts of critical thinking skills, writing skills and information literacy among other things." Blogging, says Richardson (2004), "offers students a chance to a) reflect on what they are writing and thinking as they write and think it, b) carry on writing about a topic over a sustained period of time, maybe a lifetime, and c) engage readers and audience in a sustained conversation that then leads to further writing and thinking."

A different interpretation is offered by Downes (2004). He suggests that "blogging isn’t really about writing at all; that’s just the end point of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting. If a student has nothing to blog about, it is not because he or she has nothing to write about or has a boring life. It is because the student has not yet stretched out to the larger world, has not yet learned to meaningfully engage in a community. For blogging in education to be a success, this first must be embraced and encouraged."

Ruby Rocket: Private Detective

I thought I'd break up all the blog-talk with an animated video. Cheers

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom

Are blogs useful to education?

In the educational landscape, the Web, says Downes (2004), is now a familiar part, "and for those sites where personal publishing or chronologically ordered content would be useful, blogs have stepped to the fore."

Ferdig and Trammel (2004), highlight that blogs are a useful educational tool "because they provide a space for students to reflect and publish their thoughts and understandings. And because blogs can be commented on, they provide opportunities for feedback and potential scaffolding of new ideas. Blogs also feature hyperlinks, which help students begin to understand the relational and contextual basis of knowledge, knowledge construction and meaning making."

What makes a blog an attractive tool for education?

"What makes blogs so attractive, in both the educational community and the Internet at large, is their ease of use", says Downes (2004). There are numerous free Blog applications such as Blogger, used for this blog, and Edublogs, that have pre-built functionality so all that is required is for the learner to add content in the form of text and media. Refer to the post: What can I do with Blogger?... for more information.

Examples of other Blog applications can be seen under the heading, Blog Software Applications on the right-hand side of this blog. Some interesting examples of other blogs can be found under Links to Other Blogs.

Web 2.0 - An intro in 5 minute

Whether you call them blogs or weblogs, these digital spaces have emerged as one of the main tools of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, but what is Web 2.0? Here's is an interesting visual take on what Web 2.0 could mean.

For more defintions and perspectives on Web 2.0 and Blogging, take a look at the Audio/ Visual Resources.

Social Bookmarking: Del.icio.us

I have embedded a Tag Roll at the bottom of this Blog through the free social boomarking application, Del.icio.us. According to Franklin and van Harmelen (2007), “a social bookmarking service provides users the ability to record (bookmark) web pages, and tag those records with significant words (tags) that describe the pages being recorded (p. 5).

A Tag Roll allows you to show a ‘cloud’ or list of your Del.icio.us tags as part of your website.

Once you’ve created a Del.icio.us account and have started to tag web pages, you can go in to settings, and copy your Tag Roll in to a web page, such as a blog. Del.icio.us provides you with HTML code that you can copy and paste in to you Blog through the the Third party/ HTML Content page element.

When you view my Tag Roll, some words or names appear bigger than others. Tags that are repeated more frequently can be set-up to appear larger (although this can be edited).

As a Del.icio.us account holder you can connect with other users to take advantage of their bookmarks.

Another example of a social bookmarking application is http://www.bibsonomy.org/

Social bookmarking, says Franklin and van Harmelen (2007), allows Educational practitioners to “build up collections of resources (p. 5)."

Ben's Blog Music

Hey guys. I wanted to find out how to add music to my Blog so I visited Blogger Help and found 'How do I post audio/music to my blog?'.

Blogger Help explains that you are required to embed code from a Third Party site; walks you through the steps on how to do this (as I have no idea about code), and includes a list of recommended sites, which Blogger has no affiliation with:

• Last.fm
• Seeqpod
• Imeem
• IODA Promonet
• Hypster
• Streampad
• Splashcast
• Project Playlist
• FineTune
• MyFlashFetish

I have chosen Last.fm to trial and have embedded a random radio playlist in to my Blog based on Miles Davis and similar artists. If you don't like the track you can press stop, forward to the next track or select one of the similar artist links below the Play button.

Review of 'Welcome from Ben' video

I think I could have referred a little less to 'Blogging' on the Welcome video but it's great to try out different media in this environment.

Ben's Blog Navigation Tip: What are Labels or Tags?

Each time I create a new post, I can include a label/s or tag/s. A lable or tag is a reference word or words that can be used to search for related posts i.e. If 3 posts have been tagged with the word Blog, you can go to Labels or Tags in the right-hand column; find and select Blog (3); and retrieve all posts with the label Blog.

At the bottom of each post, you will see all labels or tags associated with that post. For example, at the bottom of this post there are 3 labels or tags: Bookmarking, Del.icio.us, Labels, Pictures, Posts, Social, Tags.

This is a form of social bookmarking within the Blog. At the bottom of the Blog page you can see another, my Tag Roll, an example of bookmarking through the Social Bookmarking Manager, Del.cio.us.

Ben's Blog Navigation Tip: What is a Blog Archive?

A Blog Archive is a record of all Posts made on this Blog. My Blog Archive appears on the top right-hand side of the Blog, below the title. Click on any title in the Blog Archive to take you to that post.

Take the Survey

Please feel free to complete the survey in the right-hand column: Blogging is an Effective Tool for Education.

What can you do with Blogger?

What are some of the things can do on a Blog site like Blogger?

• Post, edit and moderate comments - including links, images and video. If you are IT savy you also have the capabilty to post, edit and moderate the HTML for each comment.
• Moderate the settings of the Blog including:
• language, security and privacy
• customise the web address
  
• adjust the time and date format
• upload a new template to use
  
• Manage the archiving rate
• Post RSS Feeds
• Add additional authors
• Design the page Layout by adding page elements and moving them around the page:
  
• Add a slideshow of your own photos
• Create a poll for visitors of your blog
• Start a list of your favourite things
• Add links to articles, websites and other digital resources
• Upload pictures and video
• Join Adsense if you'd like to display advertising and earn revenue
• Add text outside of posting
• Embed HTML, Javascript or other code to your blog such as a Tag Roll from Del.icio.us
  
• Add content from an RSS Feed or Atom Feed
• Implement a video bar from YouTube - Select the types of video you would like to appear
  
• Create a Newsreel

Create a Blog: The 5 Minute Blog

This is a video I found on You Tube that demonstrates how to set up your own Blog in Blogger (the application that I've used).

For more defintions and perspectives on Web 2.0 and Blogging, take a look at the Audio/ Visual Resources.

What is a blog (Video)?

A video defintion called "What is a blog?", from YouTube.

For more defintions and perspectives on Web 2.0 and Blogging, take a look at the Audio/ Visual Resources.