Reading, Writing, and... Blogging?

Weblogs, or blogs, are the new digital diaries, and they are gaining popularity quickly. It seems that adolescents are particularly fond of blogs; as much as 51% of blogs are run by teens. (Huffaker) Given this context, should not our educators be using blogs in their curricula?

In my Social and Community Informatics class, we have been using blogs (this one, for instance) to write our responses instead of traditional essays. This has allowed not only for a more relaxed atmosphere, but also the use of media other than the written word, such as images, movies, and hypertext links. Proper use of these media can help get points across more effectively, which is important in education. If teachers kept blogs, they could link their students to useful resources. Students, who would use their blogs to write assignments, could give and get feedback to and from their peers.

While blogs are great for delivering content, but what is the best way to collect content? The answer is RSS feeds, XML documents with short descriptions of and links to articles, blog entries, and other such content on websites. RSS feeds are given to programs called RSS aggregators, which display the content of the feed in a human-readable format. One such aggregator is Bloglines, which we use in my Informatics class. I have a couple dozen feeds, including the New York Times, BBC News, and the Linux Journal.

While Bloglines is good, I prefer a client-side aggregator (one that runs on my computer). I use a widget for Dashboard called NewsReader. Having my aggregator running in the background all the time is much more convenient than having to navigate to a page to see what has happened in the last so many hours.

I try to pick feeds to keep me informed on subjects that interest me, therefore I have mostly technology, computing, programming, and Apple-related feeds, with a couple news feeds to keep me honest. Bloglines recommended some feeds, but mostly I took feeds from sites I already frequent so I can let my computer visit them for me.

Works Cited

Huffaker, David. "The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom". First Monday. 3 Jun 2004. 26 Feb 2007. <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_6/huffaker/>