Introduction

• What are some of the characteristics of today's "Net Generation" students?

• What are some of the teaching/learning strategies that would benefit them?

• What is a blog? What is a wiki?

Indirect Educational Use

Examples of blogs not created for educational purposes that you could use

Personal stories with political background http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/2006/02/in-times-of-israeli-closure-breastfeed.html

About Iraq by an Iraqi http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

Egyptian one http://baheyya.blogspot.com/

Slightly scholarly by Scandavian guy http://altahrir.blogspot.com/2006/02/in-defence-of-prophet-and-his-people.html

Subject-specific: Education http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/ http://connect.educause.edu/blog/StuartYeates

Ethics and Science http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/

Current events (Cartoon issue example) http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2006/02/islam_for_dummi.html

Critical thinking http://skeptico.blogs.com/

European tribune http://www.eurotrib.com/special/about

Evolution http://evolutionblog.blogspot.com/

Cited as most read blogger: http://instapundit.com/

Another famous one http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/

Direct Educational Use of Blogs

Some Examples:

Instructor’s own: http://vyadav.blogspot.com/

Project Produced by Student: http://medws3ls3.blogspot.com/

Reflective journal: http://mbali.blogspot.com/

Sharing information: http://sci120.blogspot.com/

Different Uses of Blogs

Student as producers of blogs:

• Student reflective journals
• ePortfolio
• Peer review

Student as consumer of blogs:

• Teacher blog for students to post reactions
• Student analysis/evaluation of blogs out there
• Others?

Why Use Blogs?

• Technology familiar to and popular with some students

• More learner-centered than WebCT: the blog is owned by the student; WebCT is owned by the course

• Chance to express themselves, find a voice – reflection and publication

• Chance to discuss with others and interact

• Collaboration: can allow group editing if desired

• Can allow comments from fixed or open group of readers as desired (referring to blogger.com)

• Free (some)

• Simple & User-friendly

• Allows some graphics to be added in an easy way; HTML allows for more interesting-looking text
• 
• RSS feeds help people keep up

The Future?

Podcasting

Vlogging

Anything else you can think of?

Some issues with using blogs

• Public – do you want it all to be public? But there are ways around that
• Credibility of blogs is questionable - anyone can post anything on them; bloggers might use unattributed text
• Comments can come from anywhere – but you can manage that

• Other issues?

Hands-on

Search for Relevant Blogs
Search for a blog relevant to your own discipline:
http://www.blogscholar.com;
http://www.globeofblogs.com;
http://www.blogger.com/ ;
www.scienceblogs.com;
and even http://www.google.com/blogsearch

Create Your Own Blog
There are a lot of free, public blogging websites. Let's each create one right now on www.blogger.com

ACS now offers blogs for AUC instructors - go to myspace.aucegypt.edu to request an account