Benefits of using Weblogs

Using weblogs, especially for education, could be as useful as any other tool. As a media tool, it provides many things we can use, change, add and so on. For example, in this course of Tecnología Educativa we had to share our work using a weblog so that everyone will be able to see it, observe it and even make a comment about it. Most people use a blog for the same purpose, share. If you have ever used one or even tried to make your own, you will surely know what I am saying. If not, you can try it. It's easy to use and you can personalize it.

Regarding to the use of weblogs, there are some specific characteristics that help it to be more interesting. Firstly, it allows you to introduce your page. Then, there are plenty of functions it gives to organize your information or posts. For example, we've got gadgets. They serve to add extra functions, say, a small explorer, one that shows your posts, you can add links to other web pages and blogs, etc. Also, you can add media content, like a video, images and pictures, sound and everything that could be placed by adding the embed code. You can change the template too, as well as move the gadgets and chenge the look of your posts by placing it anyplace you want in your blog. These are some of its features, and the principal ones.

With respect to education, we can give it a more academic usage. In learning languages, for example and without loosing the main purpose of weblogs which is sharing, we as teachers can gathered all the information we want our students to explore and comprehend and share it using this tool. It could be some web pages related to one topic, tutorial videos from the web, dynamic games and exercises on line as well as all the work we do with media. These are some examples of how one could use blogs, but there are much more; however, we need some creativity.

Still talking about education and how blogs contributes in it, we can state instructional methods are involved in. In my point of view, tutorial could be the first one because any kind of information could be uploaded, thus one can add something about a given topic in order to solve doubts and add extra information to what was previosly seen and acknowledged. Likewise, cooperative learning is directly related to the usage of this tool. For example when we make a comment, we are pointing out what we find wrong or what was new for us and so on, we are working altogether cooperatively. The rest of the instructional methods are related too, but not as evident as the ones I pointed out. The way the blog will take depends on what its owner want to do.