Practical bon log application advice
My experience with blogs is limited to reading, and occasionally posting comments to other peoples. But during January I will be co-teaching a travel-study course We would like one of the assignments to be a travel blog for the entire class. We will probably be able to get server space on a university computer. But I need advice on possible software/applications. At a minimum we want our students to be able to input/upload text and images (video would be nice, too). The interface needs to be relatively simple, as we will sometimes be working from cybercafés, with limited time to fuss with things. And, of course, cost is a factor. Any suggestions? Feel free to offer advice either on or off list. Thanks Chris Christopher J. Richter Assoc. Prof. & Chair, Communication Studies Hollins University P.O. Box 9652 Roanoke VA, 24020 Tel. 5403626358 Fax 5403626286 e-mail crichter@hollins.edu web www.hollins.edu
We will probably be able to get server space on a university computer. But I need advice on possible software/applications. At a minimum we want our students to be able to input/upload text and images (video would be nice, too). The interface needs to be relatively simple, as we will sometimes be working from cybercafés, with limited time to fuss with things. And, of course, cost is a factor. Any suggestions?
"geeky street cred" these days seems to go to serendipity: http://www.s9y.com/ It lacks some of the most annoying warts that affect Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.org) and Movable Type (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype), the other two weblog publishing systems that people are likely to recommend to you. Other systems, such as Drupal and Joomla! and Moodle, could be tweaked into meeting your needs-- but probably significantly outstrip your need for flexibility or your desire to carry out extensive configuration. Hope this helps, --elijah
Quick note: it's a .org: http://www.s9y.org/ But if you are new to blogging, the last thing you want to worry about is dealing with installs. Even if you aren't new to blogging. I have had a lot of success with http://wordpress.com, but livejournal and blogger are also reasonable choices. Again, I'd recommend against doing installs (or having your students install) unless you are a masochist. None of the systems are particularly difficult to install or maintain, but why do it if someone else will do it for you? Best, Alex On 10/18/06, elw@stderr.org <elw@stderr.org> wrote:
We will probably be able to get server space on a university computer. But I need advice on possible software/applications. At a minimum we want our students to be able to input/upload text and images (video would be nice, too). The interface needs to be relatively simple, as we will sometimes be working from cybercafés, with limited time to fuss with things. And, of course, cost is a factor. Any suggestions?
"geeky street cred" these days seems to go to serendipity:
It lacks some of the most annoying warts that affect Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.org) and Movable Type (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype), the other two weblog publishing systems that people are likely to recommend to you.
Other systems, such as Drupal and Joomla! and Moodle, could be tweaked into meeting your needs-- but probably significantly outstrip your need for flexibility or your desire to carry out extensive configuration.
Hope this helps,
--elijah
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Agreed, I'd also recc LiveJournal because you can easily friend other people and have a community to post issue/information. I use it mainly for the community features it offers. -Ellie On 10/18/06, Alex Halavais <halavais@gmail.com> wrote:
Quick note: it's a .org:
But if you are new to blogging, the last thing you want to worry about is dealing with installs. Even if you aren't new to blogging. I have had a lot of success with http://wordpress.com, but livejournal and blogger are also reasonable choices. Again, I'd recommend against doing installs (or having your students install) unless you are a masochist. None of the systems are particularly difficult to install or maintain, but why do it if someone else will do it for you?
Best,
Alex
On 10/18/06, elw@stderr.org <elw@stderr.org> wrote:
We will probably be able to get server space on a university computer. But I need advice on possible software/applications. At a minimum we want our students to be able to input/upload text and images (video would be nice, too). The interface needs to be relatively simple, as
we
will sometimes be working from cybercafés, with limited time to fuss with things. And, of course, cost is a factor. Any suggestions?
"geeky street cred" these days seems to go to serendipity:
It lacks some of the most annoying warts that affect Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.org) and Movable Type (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype), the other two weblog publishing systems that people are likely to recommend to you.
Other systems, such as Drupal and Joomla! and Moodle, could be tweaked into meeting your needs-- but probably significantly outstrip your need for flexibility or your desire to carry out extensive configuration.
Hope this helps,
--elijah
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Do you have to use university space to do this? There are several great blogging places online that have all that stuff avail. You can download livejournal's source code, and I think places like wordpress offer software as well. On 10/18/06, Christopher J. Richter <crichter@hollins.edu> wrote:
My experience with blogs is limited to reading, and occasionally posting comments to other peoples. But during January I will be co-teaching a travel-study course We would like one of the assignments to be a travel blog for the entire class.
We will probably be able to get server space on a university computer. But I need advice on possible software/applications. At a minimum we want our students to be able to input/upload text and images (video would be nice, too). The interface needs to be relatively simple, as we will sometimes be working from cybercafés, with limited time to fuss with things. And, of course, cost is a factor. Any suggestions?
Feel free to offer advice either on or off list.
Thanks Chris
Christopher J. Richter Assoc. Prof. & Chair, Communication Studies Hollins University P.O. Box 9652 Roanoke VA, 24020 Tel. 5403626358 Fax 5403626286 e-mail crichter@hollins.edu web www.hollins.edu
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I just had my students set up on wordpress.com it is free, though you can pay for special extras, and has what i think is the best spam protection around. oh... it took them less time to set up the blog on their own than it too me to tell them what a blog was... so that was funny.... i said 15 minutes... 2 minutes later they are staring at me... On Oct 18, 2006, at 10:45 AM, Christopher J. Richter wrote:
My experience with blogs is limited to reading, and occasionally posting comments to other peoples. But during January I will be co- teaching a travel-study course We would like one of the assignments to be a travel blog for the entire class.
We will probably be able to get server space on a university computer. But I need advice on possible software/applications. At a minimum we want our students to be able to input/upload text and images (video would be nice, too). The interface needs to be relatively simple, as we will sometimes be working from cybercafés, with limited time to fuss with things. And, of course, cost is a factor. Any suggestions?
Feel free to offer advice either on or off list.
Thanks Chris
Christopher J. Richter Assoc. Prof. & Chair, Communication Studies Hollins University P.O. Box 9652 Roanoke VA, 24020 Tel. 5403626358 Fax 5403626286 e-mail crichter@hollins.edu web www.hollins.edu
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Jeremy Hunsinger School of Library and Information Science Pratt Institute () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.aoir.org The Association of Internet Researchers http://www.stswiki.org/ stswiki http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/ LI-the journal http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/ Transdisciplinary Studies:the book series
In my experience, Wordpress is great for blogs when a single student is using them (and either wordpress.com or James Farmer's edublogs.org both offer great, easy-to-use and freely hosted versions of Wordpress Mu which anyone can sign up to and be blogging in five minutes) but Blogger is actually easier to set up for course or tutorial blogs (ie those blogs where a number of students or your entire course are blogging in one place, in one blog -- or even one bon log! ;) If you do prefer to run them on your university's servers rather than a service hosted elsewhere, blogger can be set up this way (although the interface and brain of the service remains on the google servers while your actual blog itself is on the uni server) or Wordpress Mu (http://mu.wordpress.org/) could be installed by one person and then used as the portal through which students cna set up blogs without actually going through installation themselves. Cheers, Tama -- Dr Tama Leaver Associate Lecturer (Higher Education Development) Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (M400) University of Western Australia 35 Stirling Highway Crawley WA 6009 Australia Ph: (+61 8) 6488 1502 Fax: (+61 8) 6488 1156 www: http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au blog: http://ponderance.blogspot.com edublog: http://tama.edublogs.org On 10/19/06, Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
I just had my students set up on wordpress.com it is free, though you can pay for special extras, and has what i think is the best spam protection around. oh... it took them less time to set up the blog on their own than it too me to tell them what a blog was... so that was funny.... i said 15 minutes... 2 minutes later they are staring at me... On Oct 18, 2006, at 10:45 AM, Christopher J. Richter wrote:
My experience with blogs is limited to reading, and occasionally posting comments to other peoples. But during January I will be co- teaching a travel-study course We would like one of the assignments to be a travel blog for the entire class.
We will probably be able to get server space on a university computer. But I need advice on possible software/applications. At a minimum we want our students to be able to input/upload text and images (video would be nice, too). The interface needs to be relatively simple, as we will sometimes be working from cybercafés, with limited time to fuss with things. And, of course, cost is a factor. Any suggestions?
Feel free to offer advice either on or off list.
Thanks Chris
Christopher J. Richter Assoc. Prof. & Chair, Communication Studies Hollins University P.O. Box 9652 Roanoke VA, 24020 Tel. 5403626358 Fax 5403626286 e-mail crichter@hollins.edu web www.hollins.edu
_______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Jeremy Hunsinger School of Library and Information Science Pratt Institute () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments
http://www.aoir.org The Association of Internet Researchers http://www.stswiki.org/ stswiki http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/ LI-the journal http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/ Transdisciplinary Studies:the book series
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drupal's not bad for settting up multiple blogs, too... i think we have to come up with a meaning for bon log now, and start using it. On 10/19/06, Tama Leaver <tamaleaver@gmail.com> wrote:
In my experience, Wordpress is great for blogs when a single student is using them (and either wordpress.com or James Farmer's edublogs.org both offer great, easy-to-use and freely hosted versions of Wordpress Mu which anyone can sign up to and be blogging in five minutes) but Blogger is actually easier to set up for course or tutorial blogs (ie those blogs where a number of students or your entire course are blogging in one place, in one blog -- or even one bon log! ;)
-- Barry Saunders QUT sessional academic http://creativeindustries.qut.com http://d-notice.net
Apropos of this thread, let me put in a plug for a web-based resource my colleagues and I have developed which focuses on blogging in the classroom: http://blogsforlearning.msu.edu. Actually, I should say “are developing” as we’re still adding features and content. The goal of Blogs For Learning is to provide a place to exchange information about the pedagogical and technical aspects of instructional blogging. Currently the site contains a set of tutorials, articles (case studies, informational pieces, etc.) and a blog. Although this particular question hasn’t been addressed yet, I think the site may be helpful for addressing other questions that may arise. And for those on the list who have used blogs in an educational capacity: If you’d be interested in contributing to the site, please contact me off-list. Re: Chris’ query: I think the comments so far have been helpful. For my own part, I’ve used Blogger and WordPress in my courses, and prefer Wordpress. I did have a tech person who installed it, so I can’t speak to the complexity of that process. Installing Blogger on a university server as Tama suggests may have addressed some of the problems I had, as would creating a group blog. Good luck! And have fun. Nicole -- Nicole Ellison, PhD Asst. Professor, Dept. of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media Michigan State University
participants (8)
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Alex Halavais -
Barry Saunders -
Christopher J. Richter -
Ellie Wix -
elw＠stderr.org -
Jeremy Hunsinger -
Nicole B Ellison -
Tama Leaver