Presented during The Three Days Professional Development Course for Teachers at ZIET Mysore organised by KVS and Oracle Academy.
The presentation explore the use of blogs in our class rooms. Blogs can be effectively used for collaborative online projects providing a platform for the students to express their ideas, concepts and skills.
2. Let’s Begin…
How many of you…
…have heard of blog/blogging before?
…regularly read a blog?
…contribute to a blog?
…use it in your classroom?
…make use of RSS?
3. Blog?
• Web Logs
• A form of micro-publishing or documenting
your thoughts about any topic on the Web
• a personal, chronologically ordered set of
entries, each having a title, description and
unique URL, in a web-based ‘log’ or journal
4. Terminology
• Blogging: The act of contributing to blogs
• Blogosphere: All blogs, or the blogging community
• Blogroll: A list of other blogs
• Permalink: The unique URL of a single post
• Post: An entry written and published to a blog
5. Terminology
• RSS: URL that can be used to subscribe to your
blog and get automatic notifications of new posts
• TrackBack: automated means for notifying another
blog when you have referenced them
• Pingback: The alert in the TrackBack system
7. Characteristics
• Posts are in reverse chronological order…most
recent first
• Searchable archives
• Updated on a regular basis, sometimes daily
• Most Web logs are written in an informal, first person
style
8. Characteristics
• Hyperlink to or reference news and information from
other sites
• Set of tools supporting simple creation of XML-
based content
• Primarily text, but Web logs can include all sorts of
multimedia files
• Rely on RSS technology – Really Simple Syndication
or Rich Site Summary
9. Types of Blogs
Personal
• Daily dairy/Journal
• Experiences, refelctions
• Photo Album
Professional
• Family/friends
• Educational/Corporate Public
…
• Skill development
• Public Issues
• Knowledge Repository
… • Marketing
• Awareness
….
10. The Advantages
Free or low-cost Chronological, categorised
Easy to create, use & content
maintain Encourages personal
Access anywhere reflections
Interactive original ideas and stimulate
Wide audience discussions
Many Blog services Knowledge management and
archiving
11. The Disadvantages
• Large number of blog services
• Template and layout editing
• Integration of multimedia
• Authenticity
• No censorship
• Needs regular updating
12.
13. TEACHERS
• As Writer/Contributor
Collaborate and share ideas and resources world-wide
Maintain a personal journal
Knowledge management tool
Post class room announcements, project, assignment,
reading lists, Instructions, tips and tutorials
Create selected web resources for students
Communication to parents
Collaborative blog with students
14. TEACHERS
• As Reader
Discipline specific blogs to keep up-to-date
Access to teaching resources/lesson plans
Assess student’s projects/assignments
Professional growth
Peer interaction
15. STUDENTS
Document their class works online
Reflections on their learning
Informal medium for submission of projects/assignments
Outside classroom interaction with peers and experts
May motivate those who might not participate in class room
discussions
Self learning – access to wide variety of study tips/materials
Stay in touch with teachers and other students during
vacations
16. Benefits
• Motivating to students
• Encourage learners engagement and participation
• Provide individual environment for them to study
• Provides a platform for showcasing creativity and skills
• Effective interaction
• Multidisciplinary and multidirectional learning
• Reaching out masses
17. Skill Development
• Reading and Comprehension
• Sharing — thoughts, concepts, experiences, knowledge
• Analyzing
• Reflecting — Critiquing, Writing, Questioning, Reacting
• Communicating
• Collaboration – with peers, experts, public
• Record Keeping – thoughts, experiences, concepts, ideas
20. The Options
• Free Blogs on the Net
• Sofwares for Intranet/Internet (Free and paid)
• Paid Blogs
21. Considerations
Selecting the platform
Intended Use Free/Low Cost
Ease of Use Intranet/Internet
Easy Access Technical Knowledge
Collaboration
Content
Privacy
22. RSS/Atom Feeds
• Better alternative to bookmarking
• RSS originally RDF Site Summary commonly called
Really Simple Syndication
• Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated
works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and
video—in a standardized format
• Need an Feed Reader like Google Reader or Bloglines
23. Wiki
• An extremely flexible kind of blog
• supports collaborative web-editing
• A wiki is a piece of server software that
allows users to freely create and edit Web
page content using any Web browser (from
wiki.org)
• A wiki can also be used as a discussion
medium, a repository, a mail system, and a
chat room
24. • Hosted by Google
• Subdomain blogspot.com; blogspot.in
• Simple to use interface
• All basic facilities offered
• Group/Team Blogging
• Mail to blog
• and many more …