For Class Discussion (to prepare in advance):
- Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Blogs
- Reflecting, Writing, and Responding: Reasons Students Blog by Carie (Windham) Page
Blogging Tools - As a group/pair, select one blogging tool from below or any popular one, then post a needed information about the tool to the course Google Site: https://sites.google.com/site/idt351spring2013/home.
- Blogger - Free weblog publishing tool from Google, for sharing text, photos and video
- WordPress - A popular open source content management system focusing on web standards, and usability. A nice how-to screencast by Molly McDonald on setting up a WordPress blog (10 min)
- Joomla - Another popular free, open-source content management system (CMS)
- Drupal - Another popular free open-source CMS
- MoveableType - Another popular free open-source CMS
Further Resources (for those who are interested in exploring further about blogging)
- Edublogs Award site
- Tom Barrett’s Interesting Ways series
- Blogging Policies and Resources Wiki by Bud Hunt
- Blogger for Word - Can post right to your Blogger from Word
- The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging…And When to Use Each One
- Great blog post example from Will Richardson on: “Why Johnny’s Professor Can’t Read”
- Which blogging tool is your favorite, why? Which feature(s) did you find most useful for teaching or learning?
- Any difficulty or challenge experienced?
- For what purposes do you plan to use your blog? Class lecture showed possible applications, such as portfolio, content/file management, class discussion, etc.
- For adoption or implementation within an organization, what is important?
- Course set-up, material, and assignment, etc.
- Or any personal reflection
Choosing a blog site I chose to use WordPress.com, I chose this site because I know that it can be transformed into a simple web page as well as a blog. This blog can communicate effectively not only through text but through images and videos as well. Having this option to use different media, this blog can give any type of viewer information making it easy to teach and learn.
ReplyDeleteStarting up this blog, I only had one difficulty and that was the initial start up when waiting for an email to confirm my email address. I expected the email right away but received it in the minutes shortly after.
For my blog I want to start conversations and receive input and other opinions about subjects I post on. By creating discussion within my blog, my topic will be further developed with the help of others. The blog will develop conversations which will then achieve a purpose within the other students opinions making implementation more important than adoption. However, having viewers agree and "adopt" my ways of thinking will be a success as well.
The blog will be set up clean and simple, with easy navigation, especially since most students are familiar with blog posting. Any personal reflection I will include will be about my opinions or self experiences with the subject.
For creating my blog, I chose to use BlogSot, it seemed simple, and very easy to customize.
ReplyDeleteTo create the blog, all I had to do was create a new gmail account, I prefer making a new email account so that way I can use it for education purposes only, and not for both personal and educational. After I created a new gmail account, I edited the name for my blog, chose a template and voila! the blog was created that simple. I then went in and changed a few things around in the templates, so that I can make the blog appealing to the eye of not only myself but for my classmates who view it as well.
The blog is intended to interact with my classmates, professor, and whomever else may be interested in the knowledge that will be discussed and gained in IDT351.
The blog is simple to find, and simple to navigate through, everything is clear and concise! My only concern, is that my viewers my not enjoy the font I have chosen, and I may have to change it soon.
Blogger is my choice of tool for sharing text, photos, and video. It was the first blogging tool I was introduced too and I can see why I was referred to it. It is very user friendly and everything needed to create or edit the blog is nicely arranged. I find the overview tab useful for teaching and learning because a post can be created, edited and deleted in the same window.
ReplyDeleteWhile making this blog, I had trouble adding pages with titles. For some reason, my titles where not showing up, but it was my mistake and quickly corrected it.
I will use this site to share content with classmates and other colleagues in my career. Short term, I plan on using this to complete assignments and share ideas with classmates. Long term, I plan to use this in my Graphic Communication career. The technology in my area of study is always changing and this blog would be a great way of sharing information with other coworkers.
I chose the site Blogger. I never really messed around with Blogger until this week. It seems quite easy to work with and it’s not that hard to figure out for first time users. There is many ways you can use blogger and share your ideas if you want people to know what you are thinking.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a gmail account then pretty much you are already connected to blogger. After you have your gmail account, you go into the blogger and click, “new blog,” a little pop up screen will show up and it will ask you to give your blog a title and you can pick out a background of your choice as well. You can edit and delete all you want from there.
I will start using bloggers for mostly school related type of things. I can also start using it for work related and maybe even my own personal use. I like to share with everyone what I’m thinking and blogs are always a good way to do that.
The blog site I choose is Blogger. I think blogger is the best because it seem more simple to me, plus since I already had a google account I automatically had a Blogger's account. Having a bloggers account is actually interesting. The thing I like the most is that you can create a blog and make it look however you want it to look. You can also track how many people see your blog, and edit your blog whenever you want to. I think blogger could be more useful in learning and teaching equally. I say learning because you can use it to do class work, learn about certain topics, and get someone's else opinion from. I say teaching because it can be used to post your own information on about a topic. Also teachers can have students post blogs as homework assignments. The only problem I had with blogger at first was getting started with it. Since I wasn't familiar on writing a blog I didn't exactly know how to use it but as i played around with it I figured it out. I think I will start using blogger to post informational things, and my opinions about different topics.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite blog site is blogger. This is my first time actual using a blogging website. This website is very user friendly and I love the fact that I can access this page from my mobile device. I can also access my blog at anytime and make changes to fonts or background pictures. This blogger site is great for teaching because we are able to do group assignments and still communicate with the teacher. Group Blogging is a great feature to use with group assignments. Multiple users can contribute to the blog and you either make you blog public or private. You are allowed to make administrative decisions to make sure the blog is done correctly. Group blogging is great for teaching and learning projects. With using Blogger you are able to update your blog or post a new post from your mobile phone, which is very convenient.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had any problems yet which is great. But I do notice if I have any questions about a certain feature there is help on the website. It was very easy to choose a template and designed my blog site to personal features. I plan to use this site for my class ID351 to communicate with my teacher and classmates. I am able to view all my classmates’ blog sites that we created in class. In future I will continue to use this blog website to update my viewers on my success heading towards my degree.
While a lot of blogs are more personal, Blogger allows you to create group blogs. I feel this is more useful than most blogs because it could allow a teacher to create a blog to help motivate and educate their students. The teacher could post the course material and assignments on there so students could have easy access to the material. They could also be assigned to respond to the teacher's assignments on the blog and have a blog for the students to collaborate on that reflects on the material they learned. After looking up how to do so, I saw that creating a group blog on blogger was pretty easy and using it was easy as well. I plan on using my blogger account as an organizational tool to further accomplish any goals I may want and to be able to collaborate with my peers. Overall for learning, I feel Blogger is the best choice.
ReplyDeleteAll of the blogging sites seemed pretty nice, but the one that stuck out to me the most was WordPress . With WordPress you can get really creative and make some of your blogs come to life. I am a Graphic Communications minor and a big portion of what we do deals with design, so I feel like I would have a lot of fun with one of these pages. For starting out and getting my feet wet with blogging, I would probably choose Blogger because it’s pretty simple and it’s powered by Google, which has been a pretty trusted source for me. For both of these sites I really didn’t face any real struggles or have any difficulties for the most part. With WordPress I had to learn some of the features and get used to where different tools were. With my blog I plan on having one for personal fun where I talk about sports and different things going on in the world, and I would broadcast it to others’ to read for their entertainment and so they can see how I feel about different things. I would also think about having a blog that is more professional that I could use for my portfolio and talk about things in a more professional and respectful manner. Overall I feel like all of the sites were great and can all be used to make effective blogs.
ReplyDelete