A brief introduction to blogging by Dr David Parsons of The Mind Lab by Unitec

1. The Mind Lab by Unitec | Introduction to Blogging | 20151
Introduction to Blogging
Dr David Parsons, National Postgraduate Director
The Mind Lab by Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand

2. The Mind Lab by Unitec | Introduction to Blogging | 20152
What is a Blog?
★ Short for ‘weblog’
★ Consists of a series of ‘posts’ / ‘entries’
★ May be by a single author or several
★ May be personal or organisational

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Why Blog?
➔ To share news
➔ To share your expertise
➔ To share your views
➔ To share your interests and enthusiasms
➔ To support a community

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When Did it Start?
➔ Prior to the Web, the Internet provided Usenet
◆ Mostly used for discussion, but also for some news-
style postings
➔ When the Web arrived in the 1990s, Justin Hall became
one of the first bloggers with his web-based diary
➔ Slashdot, a still popular blog, started in 1997
➔ Merriam-Webster's Dictionary declared ‘blog’ as the
word of the year in 2004

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Blogging Terminology
★ Jorn Barger first used the term ‘weblog’ (logging
the web) with his Robot Wisdom Weblog in 1997
★ Peter Merholz (peterme.com) used the term ‘we
blog’ on his weblog site in 1999, leading others to
use the term ‘blog’ (as both a noun and a verb)
★ ‘Blogger’ (now owned by Google) created in 1999,
popularising the term ‘blogger’ as one who blogs
★ The interlinked world of blogging is the
‘blogosphere’

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Blog Features
➔ Main content
◆ articles listed chronologically
➔ Categories
➔ Comments from readers
➔ Links to other related blogs (blogroll)
➔ Feeds (e.g. RSS) / posts to other social media
➔ Link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks /
trackbacks)
)

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Where Can I Blog?
❏ There are many blogging tools and web sites. Some of
the more well known ones include:
❏ Blogger
❏ Tumblr
❏ Wordpress
❏ Weebly

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Some Popular Blogs
● The Huffington Post (news aggregator)
● TMZ (celebrity gossip)
● Business Insider (business news)
● Mashable (media)
● Lifehacker (personal productivity)
● Gothamist (news, food, arts, events)

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Blogging Advice
1. Post regularly, but don't do it just for the sake of it
2. Have some kind of focus
3. Think about why anyone would want to read your blog
(is it useful? funny? well-informed? unique?)
4. Link to other resources (including other blogs)

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Some New Zealand Education Blogs
The Mind Lab by Unitec Blog
http://themindlabbyunitec.blogspot.co.nz/
NZCER Blogs
http://www.nzcer.org.nz/blogs/
CORE Education Blog
http://blog.core-ed.org/
Learning & iPads (Richard Wells)
http://ipad4schools.org/latest/
MarkMcguire.net - education / media / design
http://markmcguire.net/

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Some Research into Blogs in Education
Blogs promote creative, critical, communicative, and collaborative
skills (Duffy & Bruns, 2006.)
Blogging associated with exposure to more diverse viewpoints and
increased commitment to writing and thinking (Ellison & Wu, 2008.)
Properly designed blog activities can help students to achieve higher
cognitive levels through enhancing their collaboration skills and critical
thinking (Angelaina & Jimoyiannis, 2012.)
Blogs can encourage computer supported collaboration through
support for interaction, but shared blogs are demotivating (Kim, 2008.)

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References
Angelaina, S. & Jimoyiannis, A. (2012). Analysing students’ engagement and learning
presence in an educational blog community. Educational Media International, 49(3), 183–
200.
Duffy, P. & Bruns, A. (2006). The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A
Conversation of Possibilities. In Proceedings Online Learning and Teaching Conference
2006, 31-38. QUT ePrints.
Ellison, N. & Wu, Y. (2008). Blogging in the Classroom: A Preliminary Exploration of
Student Attitudes and Impact on Comprehension. Journal of Educational Multimedia and
Hypermedia, 17(1), 99-122.
Kim, H-N. (2008). The Phenomenon of Blogs and Theoretical Model of Blog Use in
Educational Contexts. Computers & Education, 51(3) 1342–1352.