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MUCH ADO ABOUT BLOGGING
A
recent entry on Webblogs
in Education states: "Although the blog may
be simply presented as 'a place to write, nothing fancy',
early-adopters are beginning to explore the use of the
genre as a teaching/learning tool in educational environments
around the world." Blogs seem to be the one
of the latest "crazes" in education and
are gaining a LOT of attention, but are they really
a craze,
or a dynamic and useful tool?
Writing
Blogs
First,
let's talk about what a Blog is. A Blog, a.k.a. weblog,
is a personal log or journal posted on the internet.
Many instructors already use journaling as an educational
tool, and for very sound pedagogical reasons. Journaling
has been shown to be a very powerful educational tool
in helping students to synthesize what they are learning,
as well as articulate and reflect on it. Blogs add another
dimension to journaling in that the journals are published,
almost instantly, and are available for others to read
and respond to--providing feedback to the writers, creating
a community of learners, and promoting the development
of better communication skills in our students.
Beginning
a blog is relatively easy and there are many places on
the internet that provide free blogging space. Some of
the more popular spots are: http://www.movabletype.org/ and http://new.blogger.com/,
but there are many more. Before beginning it is best
to read a few blogs and see what is out there...
Reading
Blogs
Having
our students read weblogs is another way we can use this
tool in our classrooms. There are blogs on nearly every
topic one can imagine, and many that were created strictly
for educational purposes, including Harvard Law School's
weblogs: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/.
Additionally,
there are weblogs that can provide our students with
information and points of view that they might not
have access to otherwise. The following is a quote
from msnbc.com
regarding the weblogs of a man named Salam: "Salam
Pax, the only known Iraqi blogger,...is back online,
laying to rest speculation that he'd been killed
or captured during the U.S.-led war on Iraq. Turns
out Salam maintained
his journal throughout the war, but didn't have Internet
access to post to his blog. He was finally able to
get in touch by phone with his Ameican friend-through-blogging,
the pseudonymous Diana Moon, Salam then sent Moon
a Word
document containing 16 journal entries over 45 days,
and Moon posted them onto his blog today. The entries
take some time to read through, but it's worth it." "
The
blogs posted by Salam Pax, as well as many others, can
provide very good materials for discussions and dissemination
of information. It can provide a human connection to
current events, human challenges and tragedies, and help
students to see how others think and feel in non-confrontational
ways. To read Salam's blog, go to: http://dear_raed.blogspot.com
There
is a lot of information on the web about using blogs
for educational purposes. These could be a good place
to start:
http://www.weblogg-ed.com/
http://wwwtools.cityu.edu.hk/news/newslett/edublogs.htm
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_1.htm
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Inside this issue:
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| Weblogs:
for reading and writing |
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| Wikipedia:
the encyclopedia you can help write |
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| Vivisimo:
a new way to search |
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Special
points of Interest
- Blogs--getting
our students writing them and reading them.
- Document
Clustering-a new way to search
- Wikipedia--a
collaborative encyclopedia
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For
the past several years, Google has been considered the
best search tool on the internet, and for very good reasons,
but now there is vivisimo.com. Granted, it is not as
powerful as Google, but it does something Google does
not do: it separates its hits into categories by topic.
It is what is known as a "document clustering" tool.
It allows for broader search terms, while returning more
specific information. It may be a better search tool
for students, because it can help locate relevant information
more quickly. The "hits" appear in two ways:
one is an annotated list, much as in Google; the other
is a list of topics the hits are "clustered" into.
The list includes the number of web pages found in that "cluster".
Here
is a specific example of what I mean: I went to Vivisimo
and typed in windflowers in the hopes of finding
how that name had been used--other than for the botanical
references. Vivisimo returned the top 157 hits and
clustered them under the following topics: waterhouse;
bulbs; music; garden; print,art; film; artist,art;
books; Tamara McKinley; oils; and more:
When
I conducted a search with the same term in Google,
I got over 8400 hits. The order in which hits appear
is determined by Google. Most of us only look at the
first several listings, which is usually all we need,
but there are times when document clustering can be
exactly what we and/or our students need.
Check
it out and see what you think: http://www.vivisimo.com
Back
to Top of Page
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Type
nearly any term in Google, lately, and you will commonly
find Wikipedia as one of the top ten hits. Wikipedia,
in its own words,is "a multilingual project
to create a complete and accurate free content encyclopedia." It
is different from other encyclopedias, in that its pages
are WikiWiki pages which, in simple terms, means that
anyone can write to them. You do not need to know html,
or have a password or any other special privileges to
write to the pages. The encyclopedia is truly a collaborative
piece of work and currently includes over 176,000 entries.
Naysayers
are often concerned about crank postings, but Wikipedia
states that they have had very few crank postings. Writers
to Wikipedia seem to care very much about what goes into
it. And, because information can be edited as soon as
it becomes available on the Recent Changes page, poor
or incorrect information is corrected quickly. When you
think about the amount of incorrect stuff that's out
on the web that noone can change, it makes you appreciate
the benefits of WikiWiki. Additionally, there is an editor
who can reset a page.
Wikipedia
is constantly growing and because it has the potential
for input from an unlimited number of people, there is
information in Wikipedia that you simply can not find
in other encyclopedias. Look up some odd entries, like
Ithaca for example, and see what you didn't know about
it. Maybe, you might even think of adding an interesting
bit of information to the encyclopedia yourself, or assigning
a special wikipedia project for your students.
You'll
find Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/. When
you visit for the first time, make sure you check out
the newcomers page at: http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Welcome,_newcomers
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