2 Blog

Transcript

Brief Abstract

Hello friends. In our previous discussion, we talked about the concept of ‘Bring Your Own Device’ and what are the upsides as well as the downsides of that, and what are the implications of using the concept of BYOD or the Bring Your Own Device. In this discussion we will be taking up the issue of blogging for augmented education as well as the extension services.

Introduction

• So just to introduce the concept of Weblog coined by John Barger on 17th,December, 1997.
• The term blog which is the short form of weblog which was coined by Peter Merholz.
• Basically the term ‘blog’ is used as a noun as well as a verb also. When we use it as a noun. It means you are creating a blog and you are providing contents to this blog. And as a verb you can edit one’s weblog or you can post on one’s weblog.

So now we heard about the genesis of this term blog. But what exactly the blog means.

Blogs are the personal journals written as a reversed chronological chain of text, images, multimedia which can be viewed in a webpage and made publicly accessible on the web. It means in a shortest possible manner, we can say that blog is your personal website, so wherein you can post your ideas, and it is open to the people who can comment on that. Who can add to that number of options that are available.

• So there are multi-author blogs or the posts written by large number of authors and professionally edited like Wikipedia, that you can see. You can post the concepts and number of people who can add contents to that and ultimately it is becoming the repository of information for the general public.
• The rise of Twitter and other micro-blogging systems helped integrating the multi-author blogs and the single-author blogs into societal streams.
• So earlier people were having very limited sources, wherein they can express themselves. It used to be the traditional information-communication technologies like maybe the radio or the newspaper or the television. But now with the advent of the Internet and its application in various areas. So a number of options that the people are getting and people are following them also.
• There are millions of blogs that are available. Because everyone can create number of blogs based on his choice.

Features of Blog

Coming to the features of blog. What exactly this blog means? As we said so,

• It is the personalized website and the posts include the subject title and the body of message. You can create your own blog. I will be showing you some examples, how the blogs are there. And it has the subject as well as it has the content for that particular title.
• Then posts can be relatively short in length such as one or two paragraphs. That depends solely on the author who is composing the text.
• Then it comprised of the text, pictures, graphics or multimedia content. So again it is the choice of the blog writer. He can add all these features to them
• Then posts receive a timestamp to denote the time and date of the post. So that you can chronologically grade it, so when this post was added. So either you can go in the increasing order or in the decreasing order. So the choice is with you.
• Then the readers can respond to the post through a comment or the feedback link. So it is not that it is one way. The blogs are always two way processes. You can get the feedback and on that feedback you can comment, and that is how you can continue the discussion.
• Comments create the thread as many readers can comment on the post. It means you can begin the process of dialogue through these posts, and you can come to a logical conclusion based on the discussions.
• Bloggers can also respond back to the reader’s comment and this is how the process of dialogue begins with.
• The front page of a blog contains only certain amount of posts and rest of the pages that can have number of contents.
• Then archives can be organized by month, week or by the number of posts etc etc. The choice is with the blogger.
• Then the presentation tools that allow the pages to be built from pre-existing templates. Like this you can make use of the pre-existing template, and you can create your blog. The blog authors can choose a variety of graphical layouts also. Again that is another feature of the blog. Then the typography and other color schemes are also there. You can make it colorful based on your choice.

Types of Blogs

Then coming to the types of blogs. So the blogs can be classified into

• Personal blogs
• Community blogs
• Journalism blogs
• Education and Research blogs
• And the knowledge blogs

The journalism blogs means it is an alternative form of journalism, manifesting through weblogs that are becoming more popular among the media professionals. Blogs are being used for journalistic purpose like daily events, news, sports etc etc. Because now the time is the important factor in case of the journalism, how early you are in reaching the masses. So that’s what is the concept. So with the help of these blogs, you can reach millions of people in the shortest possible time. So that is how once you create the blog, millions of people are observing the same content at the shortest possible time gap and they are responding to that. So that is how you can create lot of curiosity amongst the readers as well as listeners.

Then coming to the personal blogs. They are most popularly used by the individuals. Similar to your personal websites authored by individuals, which include chronological posts as well as links to other websites and weblogs etc etc. It means this is a more simple way of creating your own personal website, wherein you have lots of freedom as well as lots of choice for creativity and you can go on adding the content and you can invite the people to comment on the content that you have created.

Then coming to the community blogs. Similar to the personal blogs so in a group that you can create. It maybe a religious group or academic group or the technology group or the service group. Number of groups that you can create. And you can keep on continuing the interaction with them.

Then education and the research blogs. This is an opportunity to promote literacy in learning by allowing the scholars to publish their own writing, whether it is journal or story, or even the comments on class readings. So various options are there for the researchers, the individuals, the students just to create their own blogs for the purpose of learning, for the purpose of educating themselves as well as for the purpose of educating the community also.

Then coming to the knowledge blogs. Similar to the education and research blogs. So when you share the contents with you, so that becomes the knowledge blog.

Free Blogging Platforms for teachers and students.

Then the free blogging platforms for teachers as well as students include.

• The edublogsis one of the most popular service provider as far as the creating the blogs related to education.
• Blogger.com is a free weblog publishing tool from Google. Google has provided this facility. You can create blogs there.
• Then Blogspot.com is another service provider.
• WordPress is there for creating the blogs.

There are a number of such free platforms that you can create the blogs.

Now coming to making use of the blogs for the purpose of delivering the services. So here you can see the blog on Medicinal Plants Introduction Center, wherein so they are creating this particular thread for spreading the knowledge related to the medicinal plant. So this is the blog created for helping the farmers, so that you can provide the services. Also you can think of providing services(extension services) or the information to the farmers as well as the internet users in their regional language. So this is the thing that you are observing in case of Marathi language, and this is in Malayalam language. So that you can create the blogs in your regional language also. So there are various options that are available for the purposes of providing the information.

Advantages of Blog

Then coming to the advantages of blog.

• Easy to create and maintain
• Search engine friendly. The moment you create it, the search engine starts showing it to the people who are interested in those keywords.
• Then attract more traffic for fresh comments. So that is how your knowledge is being spread as well as your knowledge is being added on also.
• Then it allows you to interact with your stakeholders, because the number of stakeholders are there. So this is one of the excellent opportunity to crowd source your ideas, and as well as you can get number of ideas from the people.

Disadvantages of Blog

Some of the disadvantages of blog include.

• The plagiarism and copyright issues. So this is the most important issue, because so there is no control over the person who is involved into this process. So he can publish the material which is already published by various other people. So that is how the copyright issues are one of the important concerns.
• Then confidentiality and quality concern is also there. Because there are no quality checks before the information is going into the public domain. In the formal sources, in an official websites of any organization. So anything that is published, so it passes through number of channels as far as quality as well as various aspects are considered. But in blogging such issues are not there. So that’s what is the disadvantage.
• Then hard to grade as well as assess. You cannot evaluate the contents there, because it is highly personalized in nature.
• Then user can be distracted very easily by providing the wrong information.
• Then lack of listening and speaking skill training in case of blogs. These are some of the disadvantages.

Conclusion

Then to conclude.

• There is an excellent opportunity to develop a personalized website in the form of a blog. So for the purpose of learning and as well as for the purpose of sharing your ideas, and learning from the experiences of various people.
• Then everyone is free to express his views. Then you can make use of this platform.
• Then it has a potential to exploit in many areas like education, religion, community etc.

So these are some of the plus as well as the minus aspects related to the blog. So this is all about the concept of blogging as well as how to make use of these blogs for the service purpose also.

In the next discussion we will be taking up the issue of content analysis. Content analysis which deals with the content to be provided for the purpose of the masses. And how it can be added quality to that. So that’s the issues that we will be discussing in our next interaction.

Thank You.