Ok, OLDaily (nee Stephen’s Web) has posted a mammoth article about getting a blog up and running.
Taken together with my other posts on how to blog (here, here, here and here), the phenomena can be (naively) summarized as such:
Blogging is a form of open personal expression that is posted to the “web” where it is left for others to read and comment on. Blogs, when done properly are an invitation to users of the World Wide Web to do more than just read content online, but to write it as well. Some people will want to blog only for themselves. These people don’t really need much help, they are not looking for it. Others want to blog to archive their ideas. These people want some feedback through comments and trackbacks. This helps them to cultivate their ideas. The last group are people who want to promote their ideas. They are the type who are looking at ways of increasing traffic as a way to sell something – be it a product or an idea. These three groups are akin to the amateur, pro-am and professional (another post and article).
Blogs are can be more than just ways for individuals or groups to spew their ideas, they can also be used by students to collaborate (imagine the “choose your own adventure” that even a small class could make using trackbacks) and for just about any other use where information (nee content) is the prime resource. Edit – and in terms of assessment – take a look at this post over at Ideas and thoughts from an EdTech.
Blogs have made it easier for people without the technical inclination to hack HTML and deal with FTP/WebDAV etc to get their ideas online in a way that they want, when they want to.
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