Getting your information out there!
Shortcut: http://bit.ly/studentbloginfo
Contents:
Blogs:
What are they?
What makes a good blog?
Tools
Questions
Blogs
What are they?
The term "blog" comes from a shortening of "web log" and their modern purpose is essentially to be a space for digital content distribution from one or multiple authors.
Some blogs serve a specific purpose to publicise content about a particular topic (like this food blog or this video games blog) while others serve merely as a virtual dumping ground for a person's thoughts, observations, experiances, etc.- much like a public diary!Why would anyone want a public diary?
Who would have thought that a service could have been created out of the simple idea of sharing your immediate thought with the world... and yet, we have Twitter!
Each time information is released in this virtual space, it's referred to as a "post". Posts can be made up of videos, images, text, sound clips or anything else that can be embedded in a virtual space. Blogs give a publicly accessible voice to those who might otherwise not be heard.It's kind of like being your own news presenter!
Blogs are considered a Web 2.0 application because they're based around user-generated content. They usually facilitate commenting, so anyone can leave their opinion on a particular post on someone's blog. However, the author/s of the blog usually have the ability to determine which comments are displayed and which aren't.
Can you think of why this could be a good thing? How could this function be misused?
What makes a good blog?
To find out what makes a good blog, first we must think about what makes a bad one!
Have you ever come across a website that was so hard to read because the colours of the text and the background where painful to look at? Have you ever looked up information and when you clicked on a search result, the website looked so bad that you didn't even bother reading what was there?
Which of these two designs is more appropriate for an educational blog,
the left one or the right one? Could you do better?
Avoiding mistakes like poor blog layout is very important. The best blogs have very consistent themes, so readers know what they're getting when they come back each time.
Does your blog have a clear theme? Is it something complex, or is it just a dumping ground for your thoughts? If a blog has a clear theme, the title, side bar and other feature graphics can follow your chosen theme.
Who is your target audience? When considering a target audience for a blog, an author must ensure their theme/language/content/writing style/url are all appropriate for whoever they're writing for.
It's all about the content. How often do you intend to provide content to your readers? Is a blog the best forum for your writing? The best blogs have regular content submission by their authors.
Tools:
There are various blog publishing tools available to streamline things like posting, site feeds, advertising, design and many more aspects of blog hosting that many writers just don't have skills in.
Here are some popular blog hosting tools:
-Blogger (Google's blog hosting toolset)
-WordPress (WordPress is more limited in how much customisation it allows, but offers more design templates to accommodate this- WordPress also requires a paid subscription to unlock some features)
-MovableType
-TypePad
-LiveJournal
-FreeVlog (suitable for hosting video blogs)
It is useful to know at least some html code. Html, css and php are web scripting languages mostly used for formatting web pages. These tools can be of great use when editing a blog post, however most current blogging software packages offer a text-editor style editing suite as well as a simple html editor. See the difference between the 2 options below?
You aren't locked into just pictures and text, as we mentioned before, either. You might find other ways to deliver your content to readers.
One important thing to remember when editing the html code of a blog post or blog design is how it will look in different web browsers (like Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Opera, for example). Testing your design with different browsers can be important, as readers won't just access your site via your own preferred internet browser. Some might even use their mobile phones!Blogs can be accessed via things called "feeds". If a reader often visits your site, they might set up a feed so that they receive the latest updates from a variety of their favourite blog all on the one web page. It's important when considering which blog hosting service to choose to think about whether the service offers:
- Automatic feeds: Readers can click a button to "subscribe" to your blog's feed
- Mobile versions of each blog: when a reader accesses your blog via a mobile phone, will it automatically connect them to a version that will be easy to read on their device?
- Customer service: Will your host be able to help you if you get stuck creating something for your blog?
- Safety: Will your blog host be able to protect you from unwanted messages on your blog (spam) and will they protect your name and password?
Video blogs are often called vlogs and audio blogs are called podcasts. Videos can be embedded into regular blogs, or hosted as a series of vlogs on site like YouTube or Vimeo.
Any blog hosting software that allows html editing can have a variety of content embedded in it- from music, to animations, to games!
Here's a short version of the above information in the form of a Prezi presentation:
(Use the arrows to step through the presentation)
Was that more engaging than just some text an images?
But wasn't it just text and images anyway?
Questions:
1. What are 2 suggestions for someone who is having trouble producing enough content for their blog?
2. Can you find any tools built into Blogger or Wordpress for people who aren't good at web design? Can you find any tools outside the blog host that someone having design trouble might use?
3. Can you think of 3 different uses for a Blogger/Wordpress blog, other than for regular blogging?
Hint: What could you do if you set privacy to the highest setting (i.e. only the author has access)?
4. What is the html code for making text BOLD, italicised and underlined?
5. Pick 2 Blogging software packages and compare the following features:
- Customisation tools
- Advertising options
- Popularity
6. Find a blog and review its design, use of multimedia and content (out of 5 stars for each of those three underlined aspects) giving your reasoning.
Hint: If you find a Blogger blog ([something].blogspot.com) there's usually a "next blog" button in the bar at the top- you might use this to find some interesting blogs.
7. Describe the following styles of blogs:
- Linklogs
- Sketchblogs
- Tumbleblogs
- Splog
8. Describe 5 different media types that are commonly used in blogs (apart from text and images).
