Introduction to blogs and wikis

Blogs, Wikis & RSS Carol Walker eLearning Advisor JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East

Vlogs RSS Reader Blogs Blogger RSS What’s it all about? Syndication Blogosphere Wikis

1995 Way back when…

Web 2.0 – The next phase

What is a blog? A content publishing system where entries are made over time. The most recent entry is at the top of the page. Similar in style to a journal. define:keyword e.g. define:blog  TIP In Google

Anatomy of a Blog

Blog Title One entry – most recent at top Date stamped Each entry has short, concise title Can contain multimedia – images, video and audio Content – can link to other resources with hyperlinks Comments from your blog readers Readers can subscribe to your blog to get automatic updates

What’s out there?

Video Blog or Vlog

Photoblog

Podcast*

…

Personal

Travel

Political

Education

…

By Media Type By Genre * Doesn’t necessarily have to be a blog though

Is it Complicated? No! All you do is fill in a form… … no programming skills required

Why use a blog?

A reflective diary

A place to organise your thoughts

A collaborative space

A mechanism for sharing experiences

A means of gaining feedback

Your space on the web

…

Where do you find blogs?

Technorati

http:// www.technorati.com

Google

http:// blogsearch.google.com

Subscribing to a blog

RSS Readers – lots of options

Web-based – Bloglines , Google Reader

Analogy: subscribing to an rss feed can be likened to taking out a magazine subscription  TIP

Some Things to Consider…

Daily?

Weekly?

Monthly?

Anonymous?

First Name?

Full Name?

Alias?

1. What is the purpose? 2. Some other things… FREQUENCY IDENTITY VISIBILITY

Private?

Public?

Blogs – Hands on

Click on the “blogs” link

Have a look at some of the examples

Search for some blogs on the topic of your choice using one of the blog search engines

Setting up a blog

Part 1 Part 2 http://cawa.jottit.com

Setting up a blog blogger.com wordpress.com

Legal Implications – Help JISC Legal Information Service http:// www.jisclegal.ac.uk JISC Legal is a free information service offering high quality legal information to further and higher education relating to the use of information and communications technologies. We run training events, provide publications, and offer an enquiry service.

Legal Implications? “ Basically for colleges and universities the data protection and other legal issues remain the same for an institution when using blogs, wiki's, podcasts etc as for other media.” “ It is up to universities and colleges to manage the risk as they have to do with other means of communication. Therefore for example Data Protection, AUPs, Copyright Policies, Staff contracts/policies/handbooks etc all have to be updated to ensure that it is understood that these 'new' media are included.” Source: JISC Legal

Legal Implications – resources Source: JISC Legal Legal guide from Stanford University at http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/Resources/podcasting.htm Universities Legal Briefings at http://www.pinsentmasons.com/media/484810274.htm The relevant section is the Human Resources section - piece titled 'Blog off! - tackling the risks of blogging‘ For a look at what UK universities are doing see the following guidelines for students at : Warwick University http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/its/elab/services/webtools/blogs/terms/ University of Sunderland http://myblogs.sunderland.ac.uk/blogs/myblogs/acceptable_use_of_blogs/

Wiki is defined as: “A type of web page designed so that its content can be edited by anyone who accesses it, using a simplified mark-up language.”

Wiki pros and cons?