WIKIS, BLOGS, VIDEOBLOGGING, PODCASTING, and RSS have developed a close relationship with each other. So you might want to check out my resource page about RSS and the page about PODCASTING.

More recently, Web 2.0 has incorporated all of these technologies; see my page Web 2.0 in Education.

See also my new page devoted to Podcasting for Education.

Index for this page:

• Wikis in Plain English (a short video that makes wikis very easy to understand)
• Articles, Tutorials, about Blogs, Blogging, Wikis, etc.
• Video Blogging
• Wiki & Blogging Applications
  (where can I make a wiki? a blog?)
• Blogs and Wikis to Explore
  (blogs in education)
• Blog Subject Directories (in alpha order)

Glossary of BLOG TERMS 10/28/04

~~~BEFORE YOU START, here are a couple of motivating articles FOR EDUCATORS~~~~~~~

When to Wiki and when to Blog? What are the differences? "Blogs and wikis, because they are different spaces, manifest/take advantage of/engage different epistemic and rhetorical possibilities and serve different rhetorical and epistemic ends. They engage different rhetorics: one topical, carved from the inside out; the other chronological, staying on top of things." 07/24/06

RSS, Blogs and Wikis ~ Environments for On-line Collaboration: An article to help pull you into the latest emerging technologies to use in your courses. Includes lists of resource links for each of the above. 08/22/03

Ways to use weblogs in education: from Edublog Insights. Ideas for your own (teacher's) blog, for classroom blogs, for students, for shared weblogs. 10/29/04

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Articles about blogs, blogging, wikis:

From "Blogs in Education", a blog site by Ginger Gross. 11/22/03 Options for instructors using blogs: Content-related blog as professional practice Networking and personal knowledge sharing Instructional tips for students Course announcements and readings Annotated links Knowledge management Options for students using blogs in your courses include: Reflective or writing journals Knowledge management Assignment submission and review Dialogue for groupwork E-portfolios Share course-related resources

Wikis explained in Plain English: A short, fun video

***A great place to learn about wikis is the "Wiki of wikis", Wikipedia -- their entry about wikis.

Wikis in Plain English: "We made this video because wiki web sites are easy to use, but hard to describe. " 06/08/07

Click on the video image to play.

Classroom20.com: "The social networking site for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education." Lots of great stuff here, including news, forums, resources, groups, and the Classroom 2.0 Wiki. 03/04/08

Educational Wikis (EduWikis): "This site aims to answer one question: How can I use wikis in education?" Explore their "comprehensive list of existing educational wikis that we can learn from". 03/04/08

How I use wikis in the classroom: Cool Cat Teacher, Vicki A. Davis. "I have two primary uses: classroom organization and classroom content....The wiki is my hub. I guess you could say, I have a wiki-centric classroom." While you're there, check out the rest of her Cool Cat Teacher website. I enjoy her writing style. Lots of interesting sections, articles, etc. 03/04/08

Wiki Charters: "A WikiCharter is a set of guidelines to ensure productive interaction between members of your wiki community. Here are five guidelines from the Sony Ericsson Developer World wiki provided by wiki evangelist, Stewart Mader." 03/02/08

Jottit: Kathy Schrock introduces "Jottit": "Neat wiki! This allows teachers to have a classroom wiki that is only accessible to students who have the password and students do not need an email address to sign-up." I'm linking to her post, which includes a link to the wiki site. 09/26/07.

Tips on Developing a Wiki Community: (If your monitor isn't wide enough for this blog page it looks like there's nothing in the middle column. Scroll down; I found the article halfway down the page.) There's no "about" or "intro"; the author jumps right in with the first in his list of tips. Definitely worth reading even if you're not creating a wiki but just using one regularly. Several comments about one of the tips; apparently in the case of wikis size does count. :) 06/08/07

12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know: "...increasingly Internet activity, and particular blogging, is being shaped and governed by state and federal laws. For US bloggers in particular, blogging has become a veritable land mine of potential legal issues, and the situation isn’t helped by the fact that the law in this area is constantly in flux. In this article we highlight twelve of the most important US laws when it comes to blogging and provide some simple and straightforward tips for safely navigating them." 05/11/07

Wiki Pedagogy: "This article endeavours to denote and promote pedagogical experimentations concerning a Free/Open technology called a "Wiki"."

EduBlog Tutorials: "This blog is designed to get you started in blogging with simple tips and hints on how to improve what you are doing." 03/02/07

Weblogs in The Classroom: From Australia's Dept. of Education & Training. Articles include: Educational Value of Weblogs; Classroom and Teacher Applications; Getting Started. Links to free blogging software. 08/18/06

Wikis in Education: from wwwTools for Education, a full page all about Wikis. Headings include Terminology, Overviews & Background Reading, Role of Wikis, Pedagogy, Implementations, and many links to existing wikis for you to explore - teachers, students, courses, etc. 08/18/06

SocialLearning.ca: "As you may have guessed, this is a great place to start if you are new to blogging, interested in using blogs in the classroom, or would like to find out about (Canadian) social software initiatives in the areas of education, teaching and learning." Headings include: 1. Blogs for Beginners - *Start Here 2. Read and research 3. Comment and discuss 4. Select a Technology 5. Tools of the grade 6. An introduction to podcasting (QAFocus) 7. What is Web 2.0? (QA Focus). 06/14/06

Blogging for Learning: from WWWTools For Education, an excellent page of with links, resources, and much more. Headings include: Terminology, Ideas for Content, Pros and cons of Educational Blogging, Pedagogy, Practical Treatments. Also a section of links for Adminstrators, Educators, Learners, Classes, Librarians, and several other education categories. The article quotes Will Richardson (from Webblogg-Ed) as saying that "people know what blogs are, and what they are really seeking now is pedagogy, not training. It feels like, finally, this is no longer a technology as it is another way to connect and communicate. It's feeling like in some places, at least, blog thinking is becoming embedded." 05/13/06

Digital Story Telling: One idea for educational blogging. This is a site of resource links prepared by David Brear under the categories of Articles, Assignments, Associations, Background, Definition, Digital Resources, Elements, Festivals, Guides, Links, Samples, and Workshops. David opens with this quote: "Digital storytelling begins with the notion that in the not too distant future, sharing one's story through multiple medium of imagery, text, voice, sound, music, video and animation will be the principal hobby of the world's people." [Anonymous] Now doesn't that sound like blogging! David Brear teaches in Coquitlam, BC, Canada and offers a site of education resources listed under a wide variety of headings. 10/23/05

Comprehensive Guide to a Professional Blog Site: "This Guide addresses about 100 individual 'how to' blogging topics and lessons, all geared to the content-focused and not occasional blogger. The Guide itself occupies 80 pages. It is all free. ... In this Guide you will find discussion of these useful topics:

• How to choose blogging software and add-on tools
• Taking control of the blogging process by hosting your own site
• Getting your blog to display and perform right
• Effective techniques for converting existing documents to your blog site HTML
• Being efficient in posting, organizing and work-flowing to allow your diarist activities to flow naturally and productively
• Keeping the blog site pump primed with fresh and relevant content." 10/20/05

Memorable Solutions: Blog Tutorial: Michael Chaffin: "Weblogs employ a new technology which enhances the experience for both the publisher (author, in the case of weblogs) and the reader. The problem with these new websites is that many people don’t understand them, and more importantly, the power it gives them." 10/15/05

How to Get Into Blogs, 101: "The purpose of this post is to give the many people who still haven't gotten into blogs - i.e. not my regular readers - a simple, step by step example of how to dip a toe in the blogging waters." 10/15/05

Blogs & RSS as a School Communication Environment: "I’d like to present a scenario that seems like a potent intersection between the way that a school handles information, and the “new shape of information” (blogs, wikis, rss, etc.)" The author discusses one main suggestion/idea, but mentions others with great potential: "With aggregators in use now, the school leadership would start using them for blog-based announcements, meeting notes, policy information, calendars, and other important information. Other special departments such as sports, theatre, music, art departments, and other school culture entities would use blogging to communicate." 08/20/05

Will R. at Weblogg-Ed comments further on the same topic. How do we get teachers and students on board with the idea of using Blogs and RSS as part of their information-handling and daily school life? He gives a real-life example:

"I no longer tell grandma and grandpa that there are new pictures of the kids online at Flickr because they’ve learned to collect them automatically. RSS makes them a part of that conversation."

Then he takes that back to the school environment:

"And maybe that's the new strategy, get teachers and students rss-ing first. Give them a framework for understanding how disparate looking pieces of content really aren't as disconnected as they seem, and that there are new ways to find and collect and archive ideas from any number of previously unknown places."

Legal Guide for Bloggers: From the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). "Whether you're a newly minted blogger or a relative old-timer, you've been seeing more and more stories pop up every day about bloggers getting in trouble for what they post.... [This guide is] a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger, to let you know you have rights, and to encourage you to blog freely with the knowledge that your legitimate speech is protected. Please note that this guide applies to people living in the US." The guide addresses topics like legal liability, intellectual property, privacy, the rights of journalists, media access, political campaigns, workplace blogging, and more. 06/17/05

DIAGRAM presenting some uses of Blogs in Education: Scott Leslie's graphic. Dated October 8/03, but still useful now. 06/11/05

Getting a Reponse to Blogging Assignments: How DO we get a response from our students if/when we use blogs as a medium for both the assignments and peer commentary? This article is by a teacher asking this question. He got a good number of responses with some excellent ideas from other teachers.  03/25/05

Is Blogging Good For The Brain? "So most of us bloggers just know that the answer to the above is yes. Especially if most of what we're doing is blogging in the strictist sense, not journaling, not just linking, but really synthesizing and analyzing what we read. Now we've got some real live neuro specialists doctor types who say so as well." 03/05/05

How can Children Stay Safe Using Blogs? An article with guidelines, posted by the Australian government. 03/05/05

Pedagogical Underpinnings of Blogs in the Classroom: Barbara Ganley's recent post. "The deeper into this classroom blogging I get, the more I cannot disentangle the pedagogy from the blogging--to talk about blogs means to talk about student-centered learning, collaborative knowledge spaces, constructivist pedagogy FIRST." 01/15/04

Academic Blogging: From LORE, the eJournal For Teachers of Writing. "In the past few years, blogging has become something of a national pastime, and academics are becoming a core group using blogs for personal and professional reasons. Yet even though many people embrace blogging, many others have no idea what it is or why anyone would do it. In this issue of Lore, we explore the role that blogging plays for academics both in and out of the classroom." 01/15/05

How to Create Your Own Blog: at the Digital Divide Network, a free membership site. 12/25/04

Teaching and learning online with wikis: "Wikis are fully editable websites; any user can read or add content to a wiki site. This functionality means that wikis are an excellent tool for collaboration in an online environment. This paper presents wikis as a useful tool for facilitating online education. Basic wiki functionality is outlined and different wikis are reviewed to highlight the features that make them a valuable technology for teaching and learning online." 12/14/04

Understanding Weblogs: a communicative perspective: "This research investigates what form of communication is made possible through the weblog and what its uses are for the future. ...It will be investigated whether blogs offer a platform for what [Habermas] calls the 'ideal speech situation'. Conditions for the ideal speech situation are that everyone has equal access to the communication, that there are no power differences between the participants and that the participants act truthfully towards each other. ...Future use of weblogs lie in the three formal world perspectives Habermas distinguishes: self-expression (subjective), sharing knowledge (objective) and social criticism (inter-subjective). From these three domains networks will emerge from people with shared interests, who will reinforce social interaction by using the weblog as a communication hub, a fixed marker on the internet where multiple communication channels for dialogue will be offered." 10/03/04

EDUCATIONAL BLOGGING: Stephen Downes' article in the Sept/Oct 2004 Educause issue. "The process of reading online, engaging a community, and reflecting it online is a process of bringing life into learning. " Stephen provides an excellent introduction to any instructor for why blogs are an excellent educational tool, uses a teacher might make of blogs, a discussion of a few blogging tools, and much more. "A blog... is and has always been more than the online equivalent of a personal journal. ...Blogs are, in their purest form, the core of what has come to be called personal publishing. In the hands of teachers and students, blogs become something more again. The Web is by now a familiar piece of the educational landscape, and for those sites where personal publishing or chronologically ordered content would be useful, blogs have stepped to the fore." 08/28/04

Blogs and blogging: advantages and disadvantages: an article by Gerry McGovern, a web content management author and consultant. 08/28/04

How to Start a Blog: A concise 12 point set of suggestions by Phil Windley. "From time to time I have people ask me how to start a blog. So, I decided to write it up here so I could just point to a reference rather than making it up fresh each time." 08/28/04

Getting started with wikis: 07/18/04

The seven-year-old bloggers: (article) "Children as young as seven in one British school are using weblogs as part of their normal routine, and are doing better than non-webloggers as a result. Weblogs...get children more interested in school work they might otherwise have disliked," says junior school teacher John Mills. 06/19/04

How to use weblogs to create engaging learning experiences: Easy to read, good advice. "There are three important factors that make weblogs so engaging: 1) A personal point of view. 2) Chronological nature. 3) Byte-sized posts." Then the author goes on to "a practical and simple three-step design methodology: 1) intelligence gathering, 2) co-creation (design and development) and 3) facilitated engagement." 06/11/04

Using Weblogs to promote LITERACY in the classroom:"This paper explores the role of weblogs or "blogs" in classroom settings. Blogs...provide an excellent opportunity for educators to advance literacy through storytelling and dialogue. This paper explores the importance of literacy and storytelling in learning, and then juxtaposes these concepts with the features of blogs. The paper also reviews examples of blogs in practice." 06/11/04

Wikis Described in Plain English: "My intent is to describe wikis and the basics of how they work--in plain English. The basics: Ultimately, a wiki is a specific type of website. A wiki is special because it allows a group of people to build, edit and modify a website with no programming or HTML whatsoever. Because it doesn't require technical expertise, all users of the wiki have equal ability to maintain and edit the site. Wikis are easy to learn and use, which makes them accessible to everyone." 05/12/04

Weblogging in Schools: "A not-so-silent publishing revolution is taking place in cyberspace that could positively impact our schools and classrooms in the near future. Weblogging is taking publishing to the web out of the exclusive control of the high priesthood of technical experts and powerful corporate entities and putting it into the hands of the masses. Individuals are being empowered with an online voice and afforded a potentially vast audience for their thoughts, opinions and information. The number of educators using weblogs to enhance their teaching is increasing. It is a great time for schools to examine the potential of weblogs for enhancing their own teaching and their student's learning." 05/12/04

Weblogs - can they accelerate expertise? "Weblogs, originally a simple web browser based system for updating websites, have developed into powerful web based content management systems, capable of acting as a platform for learning that can accelerate the development of expertise learner behaviour. The paper begins by examining the basics of 'weblogging' from its cultural roots through to an overview of current weblog functionality. Assessment is made of the way weblogs are able to support areas of education such as research and collaboration, and the findings contribute to assessment of a weblog's utility as a general learning resource. The essay then moves to examine and test it's central thesis; that weblogs can accelerate learning and in particular, support the areas of educational theory such as metacognition, that lead to expertise. 04/26/04

"I'm Blogging This”~ A Closer Look at Why People Blog: "In this paper, we report the results of an ethnographic investigation of blogging in a sample of such "ordinary bloggers.” We investigate blogging as a form of personal communication, with a specific interest in uncovering a range of motivations that individuals have for creating and maintaining blogs. We discuss implications for improving current blogging tools and how such tools may affect the continuing evolution of the Internet and the ways it is used in everyday life." 03/28/04

It's A Blog World After All: "Blogs were once the domain of angst-ridden teens and doomed presidential candidates. But the likes of Verizon, IBM, Microsoft, and Dr. Pepper are all climbing on the blogwagon. Turns out, Web logs are a nifty knowledge-management tool. And companies also see them as a promising medium for advertising (naturally)." 03/28/04

Academics and blogging: This is a blog to which the author wants you to contribute. " If you're an academic who blogs, what prompted you to start blogging? And what keeps you going? What do you try to do in your blog? Does your blog have any relationship to your scholarship? If you're an academic who just reads blogs, do you intend to start your own blog sometime? If yes, what are the reasons that you haven't done so at this point in time? If no, why not? Either way, what do you get from reading blogs? Answers to any or all of these questions (or other related questions that you think are more interesting) would be appreciated. Anonymity/pseudonymity is fine. Anecdotes are positively encouraged - as I say this is a completely unscientific inquiry." 03/28/04

Designing Webloggy Websites for Schools: How can we use weblog methods and technologies to make better school websites? A relatively new site from Tom Hoffman. 03/19/04

Mandarin Design is full of CSS tips n tricks, complete with illustrations of the effects of their code. The published purpose is to help people jazz up their blogs, but of course the CSS code could be used on any webpage for effect. 03/14/04

Incorporated Subversion: Asite being developed by James Farmer, Australia. "This is a project in which I'm aiming to design and collate plans for facilitating learning online for use by people teaching online." Each of his lessons includes an introduction, carefully outlined and detaild steps, and often Extras and Tips. If you're thinking of using a Blog with your students, this is a great resource for ideas for your lesson plans. 02/21/04

Living in Parallel Worlds: Blogs and Course Management Systems: "Clearly Weblogs are growing rapidly outside the Course Management Systems found on so many campuses. ...The typical Weblog...is not a part of the CMS environment. ... it is striking how little integration there is between blogs and CMS environments. ...we may reach a time where we need to build the bridges between two important technologies. When these bridges are built, we should be mindful of the key factors that are driving the explosion of blogs, ease of use and promotion of self-expression." 11/15/03

Video Blogging: see PODCASTING

I've moved this section to my PODCASTING page because there's not really much difference between Videoblogging and Podcasting these days in terms of techniques, tutorials, resources, etc.

Blogging Applications and WebSites (where can I make a blog?):

• Blog Software Breakdown: This chart displays attributes of different user-installed blog software packages side-by-side for comparison. Only server-installed scripts will be included in this list. (Sorry, no Radio, Blogger, etc.) I created this chart to help figure out what blog tool best suited my needs. 08/28/04
  
  
• HP's List of FREE blog sites: "What are the best free blog software or systems out there?" So, if you're one of those looking for best free blog platforms available, here are some of the most recommended free blogging systems." 07/13/04
  
  
• Google's List of FREE blog sites  07/13/04
  
  
• Thingamablog! Make a blog on your own website easily without knowing HTML. This is an application that combines it all in one app -- create and publish your blog as easily as a simple webpage, read other blogs, it's a newsreader, RSS reader and FTP publisher. Finally somebody's thinking Integrate! See also: Getting Started. 09/03/04

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MY LIST (in alphabetical order)

BlogBeat: If you already have a blog and want to TRACK YOUR BLOG: "Blogbeat is an online service that can tell you all sorts of cool things about your blog, like who's reading it, what posts they're reading, what posts are your most popular, what other blogs are talking about you, how people find you, even what links people click on when they visit your blog. Simply register with us in a few simple steps, and you instantly get tons of cool stats on your blog! Everything is done in real-time, so as soon as someone reads a post on your blog, you will know about it." 08/22/05

BlogExpress: "news comes fast" is their subtitle. Features a tabbed interface so you can have several webpages open at a time. "BlogExpress is a full-featured .NET application for content syndication (or also called a news aggregator). BlogExpress supports all RSS versions. It can read contents from any Weblogs (a.k.a., blog) and any Websites that provide XML files for content syndication. BlogExpress is easy to use. It is carefully designed for high usability." Free/Donationware. 08/30/03

Blogger.com: Google now owns Blogger. "How does Blogger work? Magic! Actually, you provide Blogger a template of your page (or use one of several pred-designed ones) that indicates where you want your posts to appear. When you want to publish something, you simply enter it in a form. When you're ready, you hit a "Publish" button that will automatically send your new page to your web server. No muss. No fuss. Total control." 09/26/03

Blogger for Word: (a Google application that makes it even easier to use your Blogger.com account!) "Blogger for Word is a free add-in for Microsoft Word that lets you save a Word document as a post to your Blogger blog...without even opening up a browser. Blogger for Word makes it even easier to...save your documents to the web, and edit your work both online and off....all you need to do is download and install the Blogger for Word add-in, and three buttons appear in your Word toolbar:

• Publish creates and publishes a new post from the text in your document.
• Open Post enables you to edit your last 15 Blogger posts in Word.
• Save as Draft enables you to keep a post unpublished; it will appear in your Blogger account, but not publicly on your blog."

Bloglines: "A free service that makes it easy to keep up with your favorite blogs and newsfeeds....Unlike other aggregators which require you to download and install software, Bloglines runs on our servers and requires no installation. Because your Bloglines account is accessible through a web browser, you can access your account from any Internet-connected machine." 10/18/03

Bloglines Step-by-Step: A tutorial on how to add feeds after you set up your Bloglines account. Clear and illustrated. 11/05/04

Blogrolling: "The basic service is free and it couldn't be easier to integrate into your website." ~ "A webservice designed to make your blogging life easier. BlogRolling is a one-stop linklist manager for your blog or journal, helping you manage your ever-evolving linklist with ease. Now it's as simple as clicking a link or making a pit stop at BlogRolling." 02/27/04

Edublogs.org: "...is a no-profit adventure into providing free WordPress blogs (see entry below) and hosting for teachers, students, researchers, librarians, writers and anyone who is interested in or working in education." 08/21/05

eBloggy: FREE blog hosting together with tools like blog templates, group blogs and more! With eBloggy, you can update and publish your free blog quickly and easily! 07/13/04

Lockergnome.net: Lockergnome does everything else under the sun, and now they're hosting a blog service. Check it out with their FREE 30 day trial, and even after that it's not too expensive. 04/01/04

Manila: "Weblog and Content Management Solution" - "Manila is an enterprise-class weblog publishing and content management system. Powerful and easy-to-use, Manila lets you quickly and easily build a communication portal that ties people and information together." - "Manila's feature set lets you publish content, create discussion groups, organize information, and much more. With Manila, it is easy to implement, maintain, and administer any number of weblogs, allowing you to leverage Manila's unmatched out-of-the-box scalability almost overnight." 01/10/04

Movable Type: One of the most popular, from what I can see in my own blog-reading journeys. "...powerful, customizable publishing system which installs on web servers to enable individuals or organizations to manage and update weblogs, journals, and frequently-updated website content." Visit Anders Jacobsen article on Optimizing Movable Type (part 6) - Category XML feeds. See also Learning Movable Type (some great resources there). 02/09/04

mótime Instant Publishing and Communication: (blog application +more) "Our basic service (personal web log, private messages, instant messaging client and subscriptions) is absolutely free and we have no intention of changing that. ... mótime was coined as an acronym of the phrase: more than instant messaging at the birth of this project. ... The addition of instant messaging to a blogging platform... So mótime is much more than a simple web log service, more than a stand-alone instant messaging client and more than the simple sum of these elements." 01/06/04

opensourceCMS.com: Try out one of several blog administration systems to choose one for your site. "This site was created to give you the opportunity to "try out" some of the best open source and free php/mysql based software systems in the world. You can log in as the administrator to any site here, thus allowing you to decide which system best suits your needs. Each system is deleted and reinstalled every two hours. This allows you to be the administrator of any system here without fear of messing anything up." 05/03/04

Pitas.com: FREE and easy to update pages with an easy-to-use web interface. ...update from any web browser, without fussing around with uploading, editing pages, and all that time-wasting junk. You can customize it to look however you want, or use one of the templates we've made already, and you can give your friends access to it so you can all have a page you all contribute to, without them having access to your entire web site (if you have one that is)." 07/13/04

tBlog: "Pick from our blog templates, customize a theme, and start blogging with the most flexible and FREE blog hosting tool around!" 07/13/04

Thingamablog! A new desktop application that combines all this stuff in one app -- create and publish your blog as easily as a simple webpage, read other blogs, it's a newsreader, RSS reader and FTP publisher. Finally somebody's thinking Integrate! See also: Getting Started. 09/03/04

**Typepad**: I've experienced this one from the user point of view. Looking at the features described on their site makes me think it's one of the best IF you want to pay a subscription to host your blog. Use it to create things like a "weblog, journal, photo album, diary, or an entirely new creation." 30-day Free Trial. 10/11/03

Wet Paint: "Wetpaint powers websites that tap the power of collaborative thinking. The heart of the Wetpaint advantage is its ability to allow anyone — especially those without technical skill — to create and contribute to websites written for and by those who share a passion or interest. To do this, Wetpaint combines the best aspects of wikis, blogs, forums and social networks so anyone can click and type on the web." 03/04/08

Wiki: An environment for online collaborative webpage creation and simple database functions. "The simplest online database that could possibly work. ...Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself. ...Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users. 08/22/03

WordPress: FREE blog publishing tool for your desktop. If you feel ready to use your ISP's PHP service and set up a blog on your own site, this is the application for you. I haven't tried it yet, but they seem to make it really easy at WordPress. Lots of demos, tutorials, etc. "WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. It is the official successor of b2/cafelog. WordPress is fresh software, but its roots and development go back to 2001. It is a mature and stable product. We hope by focusing on user experience and web standards we can create a tool different from anything else out there." 04/18/05

**See my Edublog.org entry above: free WordPress blogs and hosting for teachers, students, researchers, librarians, writers and anyone who is interested in or working in education.

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Blogs and Wikis to explore (blogs in education):

List of 20 Education Blogs: Greg Ritter's Blog Habit post in educate/innovate: "I've decided to share a list of some of the educational technology blogs that make up part of my daily fix. What follows, in no particular order, are twenty of the best education blogs as judged by . . . well, me. It's a totally subjective list and it's by no means exhaustive, but all of these authors post regularly and all of them have introduced me to great new ideas at one point or another. But if you should get hooked yourself, you can't say I didn't warn you. ;-) " 03/02/08

Women Edubloggers: Janet Clarey highlights Women Edubloggers. Her own blog is interesting and has many categories, many of which address topics in education. I like her friendly, chatty approach, while still getting her messages across. Check out her Best Practices category while you're at her blog site. 08/07/07

The Edublog Awards 2005 Shortlist: A good place to find a list of the best of Educational Blogs! 12/18/05

Infinite Thinking Machine (ITM): "...a Google sponsored blog designed to help teachers and students thrive in the 21st century. Through an active blog, an Internet TV show, and other media resources, the ITM shares a "bazillion practical ideas" for turning the infinite universe of information into knowledge." 03/02/07

Ideas & Thoughts From an EdTech: Dean Shareski is a Curriculum Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada. He specializes in the use of technology in the classroom. His blog has a great variety of categories, all with useful information. 03/02/07

e-Learning Guru has a growing list of eLearning blog links. 10/28/04

Educational Bloggers: A blog for teachers and educational bloggers. A group discussion place where bloggers in education can collect and compare notes. 02/19/05

Educational Weblogs: Includes a good Education Blogroll (list of links to current blogs on this topic), as well as other useful links. This site focusses on the Moveable Type blog application for educational uses. 03/29/04

Educational Bloggers Network: "eBN is a collaborative of teachers and organizations using weblogs in education. Its purpose is to help its members, kindergarten through university, to access and use weblog technology for the teaching of writing and reading across the disciplines. The network provides a forum for educational professionals who use weblogs, an array of opportunities for teachers to continue their professional growth, and a framework for cooperation to deal with issues that affect the integration of weblog and other digital technologies into teaching and learning." 03/29/04

Learning Circuits Blog: 02/04/05

• This blog is dedicated to sharing ideas and opinions about the state of learning and technology.
• Please use it to launch trial balloons,debate with others, and challenge assumptions.
• Join us in sharing pointers to new and interesting stuff.
• Continue the discussion of issues raised in Learning Circuits
• Raise questions you'd like the Learning Circuits community to answer.

Teaching Online Lesson Plans from incorporated subversion: A blog in which the author posts full lesson plans for instructors and students who want to use blogs in education. "This is a project in which I'm aiming to design and collate plans for facilitating learning online for use by people teaching online. ...In the end it might become a book or it might not... either way, all of this will remain online." 03/29/04

WikiSchool: "This page will eventually list various "concepts" of how to teach wiki-usage to newbies." 03/07/04

Weblogs improve writing! Mark Bernstein says, "Frequent writing improves writing. We've been teaching this lesson since time began: writers write. The streets of the city are full of people who wanted to write, but never could manage to do it; instilling the habit of frequent writing is the indispensable first step. Weblogs require regular updates; weblogs improve writing." 01/06/04

Barriers to Entry: Some spot-on musings from "Will R." about why some teachers and students may not instantly adopt blogging in education. "The potential here is so clear to me that sometimes I think I just take for granted that others will see it too. Not that easy, obviously. There are a number of barriers that are going to take us some time to overcome." 12/01/03

Blogs in Education: Excellent examples of student-teacher blogs; links to articles about blogs in education. "This page is designed to provide you some resources if you want to get started using blogs for yourself or with your students. The use of blogs in instructional settings is limited only by your imagination." 11/22/03

Web logs in Education FAQ: "If you are new to the concept of Web logs in education, read through this FAQ for some basic answers and examples." 10/26/03

The Potential of Personal Publishing in Education I: "It works in a ton of ways: For sharing; For expression; For collaboration; For, well, publishing in the traditional sense; For discussion; For all of the above both integrated and apart." 09/28/03

Teaching and Developing Online: An Edublog. "The WebCT High School E-newsletter" Hosted at U.B.C. "This blog will focus on the teaching of High School online. There are many approaches to online education and we are here to share them." 09/07/03

Edublogs - Weblogs in Education: An article and some good links. Subheadings: Edublogs for Courses; Weblogs for Classrooms; Learning to Blog; Further Reading. "For people at ground level in education, the Weblog is becoming the Web-presence of choice; educators and students alike are taken by the blog's advantages over the traditional Website - without being radically different, the date-stamped blog structure lends itself to regularly updated personal records and comments on current Web-based resources, with quick and visible responses from other bloggers; this easy interaction facilitates the development of learning communities. Although the blog may be simply presented as 'a place to write, nothing fancy', early-adopters are beginning to explore the use of the genre as a teaching/learning tool in educational environments around the world." 09/07/03

A Beginner's Guide to Blogs: Want a really quick start to this newest way of keeping in the know with educational technologies? David Wiley's page includes a section about Joining the Instructional Technology Blog Scene: "...the fast-paced discussion surrounding educational applications of bleeding edge technology is delivered to your door in one easy to swallow capsule." 09/07/03

Blogging Across the Curriculum: This full site provides an overview of blogging, how to blog, the role of blogs in teaching, resources, links to student projects. Of note is one of the pages that lists links to various articles about Weblogs In and Around the Classroom. 08/30/03

An Introduction to RSS for Educational Designers: (scroll about halfway down the linked article to get to the Weblogs section). Stephen Downes explains Weblogs well in this article about RSS, as well as distinguishing between blogs and RSS. "Weblogs, or as they are sometimes called, blogs, have a unique role in the world of RSS. ... the weblog consists of a series of entries associated with links to other resources on the web. Thus the typical weblog consists of a list of sites, descriptions of those sites, and some discussion." 08/23/03

SchoolBlog News: An index of education and school Blogs. 08/23/03

Educational Bloggers Network (eBN): "...a community of teachers and educational professionals and supporters who use weblogs for teaching and learning. The network assists members to advance weblog integration in education." 08/23/03

EdGames blog. A library of digital games for education. 09/28/03

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Blog Subject Directories (in alpha order)

See my page about RSS for a directory of feed lists, including blog feeds.

NOTE: To help decide if a blog is widely read (perhaps a clue as to whether it's of interest or not?), try Technorati's 'spider' tool -- it can tell you how many in/outboud links there are for that site. ANOTHER site that provides a "blogrank" on your search for blogs is Feedster.com.

Blogs Canada 10/18/03

Edu_RSS From Stephen Downes -- "...your one-stop source for today's top writers in educational technology." 08/23/03

EdTechPost ~ Technologies for Learning, Thinking & Collaborating: EdTechPost is a blog maintained by Scott Leslie, an educational technology researcher. He currently works on the Edutools.info project researching course management systems. Previously, Scott was the research coordinator for educational technology at the Centre for Curriculum, Transfer and Technology (C2T2), a post-secondary system agency in British Columbia, Canada. 12/01/03

FaganFinder: a meta-search engine for blogs 10/18/03

Learning & Technology Blogs (eLearn Space): Along list of Education-focussed feeds/blogs 10/18/03

Syndic8: I've seen this described as "a directory of just about every channel in existence." "Find syndicated news feeds on a wide variety of topics. There is a lot here; be sure to explore all of the tabs at the top of the page." 10/18/03

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