The Blog and why you should have one 

The internet is a massive communication tool, and it is easy to become part of it through a Blog (short for Web Log).

Blogs have a rather long history, and can even be traced back to the days before the modern internet.  
History of Blogging Timeline

The basics of what a Blog is can be found on Wikipedia.
Also, Howstuffworks gives a technical overview on How Blogs Work.

So you ask, why do I even care about Blogs.  Personally I didn't start becoming interested in blogs until I started my program to get my Certificate in Postsecondary Teaching from Bethel University.  I was out of the classroom, and academia for quite a few years, and I found that most of the classes for the program required writing.  I really needed to get back into the swing of writing.  

Having good writing skills benefits everyone academically as well as professionally.  Writing is important, and a Blog is a very good way to practice your skills.  Of course a Blog is online and can be free for everyone to view, so you must be careful about what you post.  This "disadvantage" can also be of benefit, because you can open up your Blog for comments from the people who read it.  

INSTANT FEEDBACK is a wonderful thing.  In my undergraduate program I had to beg others to read my papers, here you can get feedback for free!

I use my Blog as my Journal when a class requires one because of some great advantages:

• I can access it from anywhere - as long as there is internet access
• Blogs are stand alone applications - no software on the computer
• I don't even need my own computer - web based, so I can use any computer

Are you convinced?  
Maybe this is worth at least investigating.  The wonderful thing is there is absolutely no cost.  Companies are out there offering this for free.  Your only expense will be your time.


Where to Go to start your Blog experience -
There are a number of free blog offerings out on the internet.
The Big Three are:

• Blogger
• Wordpress
• LiveJournal

Each has it's own offerings, but share alot of the same features.  I recommend that you check them all out so that you can become famaliar with them.  For the purposes of this class I have chosen Blogger.  There is a reason for this, and it is not that I get any sort of $$$ from Blogger (although it would be nice).  Blogger is actually a part of Google and its internet based tools.  

 

Google has become the premier search engine on the web, and is known by all.  Actually Google has much more to offer, as you will find out through this exercise. You will need to set up a Google Account, which we will go through in the assignment page.   Along with the account you will get e-mail and a host of other useful tools.  It is worth your time to set this up, besides it is FREE. 

Once you have become famaliar with Blogging you may find out that it is fun.  I have decided to continue with my Blog even after my classes are done, as it helps me better my writing skills which is of a great professional benefit.

One last thing - Searching and Blogs

The wave of blogs on the internet has created some really interesting by-products.  
One of the biggest benefits that has come about is the searching capability.  The information that people post to blogs has been indexed and stored by the internet search engines.
A couple of interesting ones are Google BlogSearch and Technorati.
These search engines will eventually crawl your blog, and the information you have posted will become indexed and searchable by everyone.  

Feel free to do some more research on Blogs on your own.

Now on to the Assignment Page