To Blog, Or Not To Blog A TLTR Workshop John Burke April 6, 2005

What is a blog?  Short for “web log”  An online journal or diary  Combinations of original writing/abstracting with links to other resources  Reverse chronological order  Individual author; audience comments; group authors  Searchable archives  Example: the InfoMan’s blogthe InfoMan’s blog

What’s a blog for?  Outlet for expression of all kinds Personal, professional, political, etc.  Current awareness updating  Commentary on others’ comments  Collaboration and group discussion  Organizing information (text, images, links) with individual links and posting dates

Blogs in teaching and learning: why  Posting drafts for comment  Journaling  Online creation experience  Group editing of documents  Group discussion for a project  Publishing and sharing work  Tracking research developments  Examples: Georgia State University Library America and the World

Setting up my own blog  BlogSpot (blogger.com)blogger.com  LiveJournal.com LiveJournal.com Available at Middletown in the near future  Xanga.com Xanga.com  Various other sites (free and fee-based): see this linkthis link

What choices do I have with blogs?  Can be public or private  Templates, links, layout  Single voice: one author  Multiple authors  RSS/Atom feed  Comments (on/off)  Archiving

How can I read blogs?  Go directly to the blog’s site infomanjjb.blogspot.com  Use an RSS feed reader/news aggregator: List at Bloglines (  Use/create a page that lists blog post headlines (using RSS)

What is RSS?  Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary  The feed: a list of items – headlines, postings, etc. – with links  Uses XML (eXtensible Markup Language) – feeds often have.xml ending  Newer, enhanced version is called Atom

Bonus: what’s a wiki?  Blog-like  Flexible arrangement  Key difference: anyone can edit posts/info.  All revisions are archived  Collaborative creation and editing  Examples: Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)en.wikipedia.org JuggleWiki ( Romantic Audience Project (ssad.bowdoin.edu:8668)ssad.bowdoin.edu:8668

Bonus: what’s podcasting?  Audio blogging: iPod + broadcasting = podcasting  Recordings posted for download; marketed through RSS feeds – see iPodder.org for a directoryiPodder.org  Listen at computer, or on MP3 player  More information at

Where can I find blogs?  Technorati (  Directory at Livejournal.comLivejournal.com  BlogStreet (  Many searching options: (  Blogpulse ( – indicates posting trendswww.blogpulse.com  Feedster ( – RSS feed directorywww.feedster.com

Blogs in teaching and learning: where  Weblogg – ed (  Into the Blogosphere (blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere) – UThinkblog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere  Weblogs in Higher Education (  Shedding Light: BLOG-MANIA ( ht.php) ht.php

Where can I find more general information on blogs?  Wikipedia “Weblogs” entry (  Weblogs Compendium (  About.com (weblogs.about.com)weblogs.about.com  Books at Miami (and beyond) – ugly linkugly link