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Blogging is educational
The internet has become a first-stop source of information for almost everybody. With its evolution has come several features, each of which have gained a life all their own.
- By Rania Al Hussaini,
- Published: 00:00 January 20, 2007
The internet has become a first-stop source of information for almost everybody. With its evolution has come several features, each of which have gained a life all their own.
Blogging is one of them. We are now seeing a growing interest in young people maintaining these free online writing posts. There are teachers, who encourage its use as a teaching tool in creative writing programmes.
Dr Jeffrey Cole, director, Centre for the Digital Future, University of Southern Carolina (USC) Annenberg School, USA, and Dr Duy Linh Tu, professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, visited Zayed University in Dubai and Abu Dhabi to talk about the impact of the internet and blogging. Notes caught up with them.
"Blogging is a self-expression, to share things, interests, ideas and topics," said Cole. "And it is possibly seen and checked by more than 100 million eyes. It is democracy at its best, because people are writing what they want, no one is telling them what to write … unlike journalists, who are limited to their news agency."
Dr Duy Linh Tu added: "The more you write blogs, the more you get recognised, and the more you have the chance to get into a magazine or newspaper."
Who are the readers?
"No one consistently reads blogs, but journalists do and should read them, because they are another source of information," said Dr Tu.
He encourages students, particularly mass communication majors to take up blogging. "Students in journalism are trained to work in a large media, and they are bound to their working place, but then who writes for the public interest? That is why student journalists should learn new technologies and cope with them."
"There are no courses taught on blogging. But bloggers do write and share their experiences, point of views and interests on line and as a source of education," said Tu.
Advice on how to blog:
An advantage of setting up a blog is that the youth can write and express themselves freely; they can practise free writing without being monitored or corrected by an authority such as teachers or parents.
Before you start:
"Start by figuring out what you want to write about, and what are you interested in, and then write. Everytime you write, you will get more used to it and you'll become a better wirter," said Tu.
Advantages of blogging
Weblogs provide a communication space that teachers can utilise with students whenever there is a curriculum need to develop writing, share ideas and reflect on work being undertaken in the classroom.
Get reader feedback.
It encourages students to write more often using facilities they like (internet, and computer);
It improves students' creativity by stimulating ideas and generating settings and subjects;
It motivates students who don't like writing or who are shy or reserved in expressing themselves to start writing;
It sheds light on many issues that students face;
Disadvantages:
You have to be able to discriminate between the good and the bad blogs.
You have no control over what readers choose to read.
Blogs can be sources of gossip and rumours.
Options for students using blogs in courses:
Write journals
Knowledge management
Assignment submission and review
Dialogue for group work
Create e-portfolios
Share course-related resources.
Source: awd.cl.uh.edu/blog/
The history of blogs:
By Adam Flinter
The term blog is an abbreviation of the word weblog.
The original phrase was coined on Jorn Barger's site in 1997.
Then in 1999 a new word was born when that term was shortened to – we blog.
Things started slowly, in 1999 there were just over 20 blogs on the internet.
But in 2006 the search engine Technorati was tracking 60 million blogs.
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