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And yet it blogs...

Introduction

Weblogs, also called "blogs," are dynamic, easy-to-use web spaces for researching, reading, and writing. The technology allows writers to draft, edit and publish writing to the web, to store and update internal and external links to useful information sources, to organize work over time, and to collaborate with other users on shared projects.

Starting in the 2003-2004 academic year, staff at Galileo Academy of Science and Technology are gradually implementing blog use, relying on a particular weblog content management system, Userland Software's Manila. As part of our pioneering use of weblogs, the Gal's School Library Advisory Committee will host edBlogger S.F. 2003, a gathering of  educational bloggers from throughout the country.

We run all of our many sites under the auspices of our partners, the University of California's Bay Area Writing Project and the Office of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. Our teachers' and students' use of Manila is increasing dramatically, with good results for student learning. We've discovered significant advantages in blogs for our digital literacy program:

Capabilities & benefits

  • Ease of use. With a bit of handholding, even the technologically reluctant are able to post content to the web. More advanced users are uniformly pleased and motivated to do more by the user-friendly interface.
  • Ease of deployment. All a user needs is a Web browser on an internet-connected workstation: at school, at home, wherever. (If it's IE5.5 or above and on a PC platform, you get the extra benefit of a handy WYSIWYG editor.)
  • Focus on content. Writing and reading are the goals, not designing snazzy pages. The whole issue of Web site design and updating is put to one side and emphasis is placed on the text, graphic, audio and video content of the page.
  • Security and monitoring. Password protection and membership management make it easy to enforce appropriate use policies for teachers and students.
  • Maintenance responsibilities are democratized. CTIs and librarians aren't Web masters as much as web coaches.Teachers and students are capable of doing their own blog editing, design and maintenance.
  • Collaboration - asynchronous, multi-authored, long distance - is simple for advanced beginner and intermediate users.
  • Communication within the school, and from the school to parents and communities, improves.
  • Documentation of completed tasks is made easier.

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