Blogs and learning.

Abstract

Blogs have begun to capture the attention of educators as a learning tool, which is not surprising given their widespread popularity and acceptance as a web based communication tool. Technorati, a real-time search engine which keeps track of the blogosphere - the world of blogs - reports that there are approximately 75,000 blogs created on a daily basis. Bloggers, the people who write blogs, reportedly make 1.2 million posts daily, which equates to approximately 50,000 blog updates an hour. These figures provide only one snapshot of the reality of what is going on in the public domain of the blogosphere. What are these people writing about? How can we capture this passion within the learning experiences we create? Should we even try to use blogs within formal learning situations? If so, can these blogs be assessed? What are some of the ethical considerations of using blogs as part of the learning process? These are some of the questions that we could consider. I have been blogging for two years. In March this year I organised Blog Hui, New Zealand�s first blog conference. I�d like to have a conversation with you on some of the possibilities afforded by blogs and blogging to learning from a local and global perspective.