Blogs and Wikis Workshop - Alex - Part 2

Here come the blogs and the mighty blogosphere.

1. Whassa blog?

• Definition 1: From Jill Walker's blog
• Definition 2: From Harvard Law - believe it!
• Weblog history lesson: by Rebecca Blood
• Example 1: Here's one of mine.
• Example 2: Here's one of the most popular - Boing Boing. Quick Blog Review: "It's a great resource for the fun, the wacky, the bizarre and the generally interesting tidbits on media, culture, technology, and more."
• Example 3: Here's one of the best edubloggers - Barbara Ganley from Middlebury College
• Example 4: Why stop there? Will Richardson - he got me started.

2. Why blog?

• George Siemens says it very well - what does the blog enable?
• Long Educause article by one of the blogging gurus, Stephen Downes
• Interesting article about the Brain of the Blogger
• Why is answered here, plus many of the other questions.
• What the anonymous Community College Dean has to say about it.

3. Where blog?

• A good listing of free blog products
• Want just one suggestion for hosting your own blog? Use the old standby Blogger
• A little more sophisticated is Edublogs (I guess I couldn't give you just one)
• Also very popular is Wordpress
• Don't forget about Live Journal
• Where do you find blogs to read? Try Technorati's Blog Finder or their Top 100 list
• Where can I read all the ones I want in one easy step? Bloglines, look at my list

4. How blog?

• Let's see how long it takes me to make a post to my blog. Somebody time me.
• Let's see how long it takes me to create a new blog. Somebody time me.

Other Random Stuff

• LSC's Wave was converted to a blog?
• Maybe you can win a Bloggie Award!! (change year in the URL to see previous winners)
• Women might enjoy the Blogher site where apparently men are banned.
• Some are just for fun. Gapingvoid, Apostrophe Catastrophe, Cute Overload, and too many more to list.
• A top political blog: The Daily Kos
• Guy Kawasaki - superstar
• Very professional - Creating Passionate Users
• Into tech gadgets? - Engadget or Gizmodo
• New web tools? - TechCrunch or Read/Write Web
• An open source application that also combines wikis and blogs (and more) is ELGG.org