Let's Tee Off

Let's tee off!         Image by Matthew Bamberg

The first day of class can cause a bit of trepidation, not only by the students taking the class, but also by the instructor.

Note that I began this blog on a personal note because a blog is an online journal, a record of discoveries, ideas and innovations...and personal thoughts and opinions.

Blogging, this week's topic of conversation,  is a unique medium in that it adds a human touch to the Internet. Since it is less formal than, say, an academic paper or website, the language can be a bit more casual, sometimes even very casual.

Before you move on to this week's lesson, take a look at some very popular blogging websites, which, coincidentally, are mostly associated with technology:

1. Lifehacker

2. Mashable

3. Gizmodo

4. TechCrunch

5. Endgadget 

These technology blogs are listed in Consumer Reports top 15 blogs on the Internet, an amazing fact, showing just how popular new technology innovation is.

An initial student lesson about blogging should start as all lessons do, with an explanation of the why of the medium. In other words why do people blog? Be prepared to brainstorm the why of a blogging lesson with students before proceeding with any lesson or unit that either teaches the topic or integrates it into studies in various subjects of your curriculum.

Next, blogging involves a different kind of writing, writing that is geared toward easy reading on a brightly lit screen. The essence of this writing is white space, which is the space you see in this post between each paragraph. This is important to teach to students. 

One more note about blogging before I sign off: the medium is organized, oddly enough, in reversed time, with the most recent blog posts listed first, which takes some getting used to and some preplanning if you are doing a series of posts.

I leave you with this question: How will reverse chronological order affect the way you organize an ongoing blog?