The Learning Technologies Unit website

This article follows up on the Lunchtime Technology Taster from 1st February at the Institute of Education. It provides an overview of Blogs and the Blogging process as well as some background reference, including sources for further information.

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Contact the author: Tim Neumann 

Blogs - an introduction, not a definition

The word Blog stems from Weblog, which is essentially some kind of logbook (or diary) on the web. It is supposed to be easy to use, thus enabling anyone to publish at least text on the web without sophisticated skills.

The last sentence is already open to interpretations:

• A blog is "supposed to be easy to use":
  The publishing process is indeed straightforward. However, as the technology has grown, many blog systems have now a multitude of configuration options that may scare new users, especially technophobes. These advanced options, though, can be ignored without regret.
• "At least text" is published:
  It is now possible to include images, audio files, even videos into blogs. Strictly speaking, the latter two applications are often referred to as Podcasts or Vodcasts. However, inclusion of media other than text may need more sophisticated skills.
• Anyone can publish "without sophisticated skills":
  If you know how to fill in a form on a web page, including hitting the [Send] or [Submit] button at the end, you already possess the basic skills for setting up and publishing your own blog!
  

So if you are now thinking, blogs are an easy method to publish on the Internet, you are basically right, but still missing out important underlying concepts and principles of blogging. Blogging is far more than a simple publishing process - there are other means to publish content on the web, which are often at least as simple as publishing a blog. Blogs are often referred to as a social technology, and this is where the strengths and the typical characteristics of blogs lie.

A more detailed definition will follow later. The structure of this article follows skill levels from easy to hard, and since reading blogs is actually harder than writing them(!), the next part will be on creating your own blog.