Bloggings, educative online journals for all

Bloggings, educative online journals for all

Jaha Nababan, Contributor, Jakarta

Blogging is not bragging.

Information written in a blog is maintained as free usable
knowledge. That statement contradicts what Roy Suryo, an
Indonesian information and communication technology (ICT) expert,
said in a monthly business magazine.

He said he intentionally did not create a blog or a personal
homepage -- he probably meant personal website -- because he did
not need one. This ICT expert could not have seen Bernie Dodge's
personal blog.

"Blog" derives from the word "weblog". A blog is an online
journal. Blogs allow their users to become self-publishing
authors on the web without needing to have any web development
skills.

A lot of teenagers use blogs to create online diaries that
they can share among friends. That is how blogging gained its
popularity. Unfortunately, blogs have become an online "bragging
arena".

Bernie Dodge of San Diego State University is the father of
Webquest. This is considered to be an American Educational
Technology breakthrough. It is an online portal where teachers
all over America can post their web lessons.

Webquest allows other teachers to review the posted web
lessons and rate them before using the web lessons in the
classroom.

Bernie Dodge, as the leading pioneer of Webquest and similar
research, established his blog to get comments from his readers
and colleagues on the views he shared. Bernie's readers can
observe his train of thought through his blog.

Currently, there are many classroom projects that make use of
blogs. Students are asked to create online journals on class
projects they are doing. The journals are shared among
classmates. Classmates can review and add more information by
commenting on the blog. The blog becomes the owner's means to
harnessing valuable information from colleagues.

A blog has more advantages than a personal website. It is
easier to create and maintain a blog than a website. By employing
a well thought-out lesson plan, blogs can be used to encourage
students to manage information.

Students are required to look for information and verify its
validity prior to publishing. Blogs also encourage students to
organize thoughts and improve their writing skills. These are the
keys to maintaining the loyalty of blog readers.

There are currently many add-ons that can improve a blog.
These require little knowledge about HTML hypertext markup
language, a simple web-programming language.

Having add-ons in the blog can improve interaction within it.
Many blog owners are always looking for ways to improve a blog's
utility by adding more add-ons. Blog owners improve their HTML
skills along with the improvements in their blog site.

It is the nature of a journal that a blog can be used to track
the development of information or train of thought of a
particular blog owner.

By tracking the development of a student's thoughts in his or
her journal, the teacher can guide the student through the
learning process. In order to use the blog in this way, the
teacher must devise a proper lesson plan that allows
collaboration between students.

The research projects mentioned above are trying to find the
best formula for such lesson plans. Experimenting with a blog is
relatively easy for teachers because of two things.

The first is the easy nature of a blog that can be adopted by
teachers. Second, the output of a blog is in written format. This
is a familiar format for many teachers.

As mentioned above, blogs have been used for bragging. Yes,
like other inventions, blogging has side-effects. The growth of
technology allows the conversion of old-fashioned habits into new
forms.

First there were books; then came the e-book. However, it is
not necessarily true that conventional diaries will be followed
by e-diaries.

To blog is certainly not to produce an online diary. Parents
should also know the nature of blogging and how to use it to
educate children. Children sharing private stories online may
come to harm as there are many adults preying on children
online.

Life is a journey; there is so much to be discovered. Parents
should encourage children to embark on a journey of discovery and
write it down in a blog. Let technology be a part of the shared
moments of parents and children.

Otherwise, like a knife, it will cut you off from your loved
ones.

Jaha Nababan (jaha@fulbrightweb.org), a Fulbright grantee and
Kelly scholar, is a Boston University School of Education
graduate in educational media and technology. He is currently
teaching at FISIP Universitas Indonesia.