On a (Blog) roll now!
Log entry: In your learning log, record your thoughts. Consider various uses for blogs such as citizen journalism and personal blogging. Have you seen in your net travels any interesting uses for blogs? This blog entry is an opportunity to tell us what you really think of blogging!
The Blogosphere
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I'm very new to blogging. As this question asked about any interesting blogs we have found in our net travels, I decided to spend some time this morning researching blogs. Well it was interesting to say the least! To think that all this time I've had internet access and didn't realise what interesting blogs existed in the blogosphere! I googled random words with the word blog added to find out what there was (ie dog blog, diet blog, health blog).
Do you want to know the best place to take your dog for a walk (presuming you live in USA that is!), well then http://www.dogparkusa.com is for you!
Perhaps you've eaten too many choccies this Easter and want to lose a few kilos, well then there's www.diet-blog.com for some advice. Want to buy a new car? How about www.autoblog.com?
On a personal level, many years ago I did a creative writing course and used to write short stories. I joined an Isolated Writers Group and we used to mail our stories around from member to member for comment. If only the internet was around then! I could have just joined www.backhandstories.com and submitted my stories instead!
I then visited bloggerschoiceawards.com which was very interesting! I discovered some interesting blogs such as whywomenhatemen.blogspot.com (good for a laugh). There's even a blog written by a pigeon, yes a pigeon called Brian! http://pigeonblog.wordpress.com
The nastiest blog I read was "iwillf*****gtearyouapart.blogspot.com" In the entry I read, the author had published some nasty comments about stay at home mom bloggers.
Actually I did read a stay-at-home mum's blog yesterday. I can't remember the address but I think I found it on "blogs of note" in blogger. The lady was a farmers wife and she had entries describing how she visited the hairdresser that day, or who she had coffee with. One entry made me laugh - she described how her 9 yo daughter had called her father a "turd". It did make me think afterwards though - would her daughter like the fact that this has been published to a world wide audience?
I ended up reading blogs in the following categories: animals, business, celebrity, charity, corporate, education, entertainment, food, foreign language, geek, gossip, health, hobby, humour, marketing, parenting, photography, podcast, political, pop culutre, religion, shopping, sports, travel & video!
It is like there is a whole other world out there that I didn't know existed. An alternate world. I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland at the moment!
I do enjoy blogging, for the purpose of this NET11 unit anyway. I don't know that I would be comfortable with a personal blog though. Maybe an anonymous one, or one with selected information would be ok. It would be a great way to share news with family overseas, but then again there is also Facebook for that. I am excited about the thought of maybe "publishing" short stories this way (when I have the time!). At last I will be able to realise one of my life-long ambitions, that of being a published author! I would never use a blog as a personal diary or journal - I think I would prefer to keep a handwritten journal for my most innermost thoughts! At least pages can be torn out of diaries!
I asked my 22yo son if he blogs, he uses Myspace and Facebook but not any blogging sites. Same with my 17yo daughter. A young relative travelled overseas recently and kept us all up to date with her travels through Facebook, so I suppose Facebook is really a form of blogging.
I asked my husband if he ever read blogs but he said he doesn't for the same reason he doesn't read (fiction) books. This made me reflect on the whole concept of blogs - how do we know what we are reading is true? I suppose it is with like everything else on the net, you need to keep an open mind and be aware of the pitfalls. Now I'm off to ponder Web 2!
Well, before I could answer this question I had to find out what Citizen Journalism was. I googled it and found this Wikipedia entry:
Citizen journalism (also known as "public", "participatory" or "democratic") is the concept of members of the public "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," according to the seminal 2003 report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. Authors Bowman and Willis say: "The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires."
The Blogosphere
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I'm very new to blogging. As this question asked about any interesting blogs we have found in our net travels, I decided to spend some time this morning researching blogs. Well it was interesting to say the least! To think that all this time I've had internet access and didn't realise what interesting blogs existed in the blogosphere! I googled random words with the word blog added to find out what there was (ie dog blog, diet blog, health blog).
Do you want to know the best place to take your dog for a walk (presuming you live in USA that is!), well then http://www.dogparkusa.com is for you!
Perhaps you've eaten too many choccies this Easter and want to lose a few kilos, well then there's www.diet-blog.com for some advice. Want to buy a new car? How about www.autoblog.com?
On a personal level, many years ago I did a creative writing course and used to write short stories. I joined an Isolated Writers Group and we used to mail our stories around from member to member for comment. If only the internet was around then! I could have just joined www.backhandstories.com and submitted my stories instead!
I then visited bloggerschoiceawards.com which was very interesting! I discovered some interesting blogs such as whywomenhatemen.blogspot.com (good for a laugh). There's even a blog written by a pigeon, yes a pigeon called Brian! http://pigeonblog.wordpress.com
The nastiest blog I read was "iwillf*****gtearyouapart.blogspot.com" In the entry I read, the author had published some nasty comments about stay at home mom bloggers.
Actually I did read a stay-at-home mum's blog yesterday. I can't remember the address but I think I found it on "blogs of note" in blogger. The lady was a farmers wife and she had entries describing how she visited the hairdresser that day, or who she had coffee with. One entry made me laugh - she described how her 9 yo daughter had called her father a "turd". It did make me think afterwards though - would her daughter like the fact that this has been published to a world wide audience?
I ended up reading blogs in the following categories: animals, business, celebrity, charity, corporate, education, entertainment, food, foreign language, geek, gossip, health, hobby, humour, marketing, parenting, photography, podcast, political, pop culutre, religion, shopping, sports, travel & video!
It is like there is a whole other world out there that I didn't know existed. An alternate world. I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland at the moment!
I do enjoy blogging, for the purpose of this NET11 unit anyway. I don't know that I would be comfortable with a personal blog though. Maybe an anonymous one, or one with selected information would be ok. It would be a great way to share news with family overseas, but then again there is also Facebook for that. I am excited about the thought of maybe "publishing" short stories this way (when I have the time!). At last I will be able to realise one of my life-long ambitions, that of being a published author! I would never use a blog as a personal diary or journal - I think I would prefer to keep a handwritten journal for my most innermost thoughts! At least pages can be torn out of diaries!
I asked my 22yo son if he blogs, he uses Myspace and Facebook but not any blogging sites. Same with my 17yo daughter. A young relative travelled overseas recently and kept us all up to date with her travels through Facebook, so I suppose Facebook is really a form of blogging.
I asked my husband if he ever read blogs but he said he doesn't for the same reason he doesn't read (fiction) books. This made me reflect on the whole concept of blogs - how do we know what we are reading is true? I suppose it is with like everything else on the net, you need to keep an open mind and be aware of the pitfalls. Now I'm off to ponder Web 2!
April 22, 2009 at 9:23 AM
hi sheila,
love this blog. it makes me laugh.
ciao, janice