TBTE 415 Tom Hammond, Fall 2007 Demo tool presentation
Obligatory wikipedia entry on blogs My summary:
A website That serves only one purpose
▪ Accept “posts,” text entries (but may include media) ▪ Organized chronologically (i.e., if the newest posts go on top, new posts push old ones down)
And which may or may not
▪ Accept comments on posts ▪ Have secondary navigation to posts, archives, other sites, users, etc. ▪ Have tags on posts
Our class’ blog (WordPress) (A) My blog (blogspot) (B) A teacher’s blog (C) A school district’s blogs (D)
(Personal stuff) Professional
Providing a chronicle of classroom activities,
audience = parents or community (think daily/weekly newsletter) Supporting a conversation in a community of practice (teachers, students, or just interested parties) Note-taking (E)
Some have bad design (F) Some have questionable content (G) Some have ads that may include questionable content (H) Some have inescapable features that link you to questionable content (i.e., other people) (I)
It’s open source (and all that goes with it) Two great options: Use their host or install your own Using the free host = Install your own WordPress blog
Single or multi-user Requires ▪ webserver running PHP ▪ SQL database
http://wordpress.com/ No ads No links to other blogs (except when logged in) Nice supporting features (such as spam filtering) Can be entirely private: log-in required even to read Front end, back end
Get it from http://wordpress.org/ Can be single-user or multi-user Requires:
webserver running PHP
SQL database
(they have recommendations if you want to rent
space: http://wordpress.org/hosting/) Some technical skills (e.g., inputting database connect info, managing back end)
WordPress
WordPress for Beginners
The Famous Five-Minute Install
Alternatives to WordPress
http://www.21classes.com/
Education blogs in action
http://teacherlingo.com/blogs/default.aspx