WEBLOGS AS AN EMERGING GENRE IN HIGHER EDUCATION.

                              Weblogs as an emerging genre in higher education.



Blogging in general involves the development of  a  singular , sustained voice, one that is often explicitly linked in its emergency to specific real-world activities and development. Weblogs or blogs were inverted in the past decades as an internet application genre. Weblogs are more like personal diaries where one is free to express and reflect on any matters with different themes. In higher education weblogs are used for different reasons they can be used as a platform of communication between lectures and students. Blogs promote an on-going interaction between bloggers(lectures~students, students~students) where they discuss each other's ideas critically and cognitively so. The weblogs  makes the  internet more approachable and comprehensible. As a student in higher education you are expected to make research on certain topics, you need the internet and some sources to do research , blogging do assist in that as the love of reading and writing would be evoked because one is used and enjoys blogging. Weblogs assist lectures in conveying insights about identifying and hypertext.


I was introduced to blogging last year, as a form of assessment. I did not see any need of blogging before because I was not aware of the good things that blogging bring about especially to a student. Because of its format similar to that of a personal diary, weblogs encourage informal communication, creativity and self -expression. For non computer science students including us teachers in training, weblogs provide the chance of learning about web, page creation and hyper linking. Weblogs can serve as another way of introducing technology into classrooms.

 Weblogs have the ability to reach a large audience meaning whatever information I will be trying to convey to the world will be accessible to many people out there. One can promote his/her own weblog through the social networks one is using(Facebook/Twitter) without losing information quality and allowing different levels of detail. Weblogs also create connections between students with diverse interests and opinions.This can encourage critical thinking and teaches the value of respects towards students, where students will have to respects each others points of views.

Discussions in weblogs promote higher levels of thinking and reading  because people need to first read the whole post and think critically so before answering back. The weblogs information can be accessed anytime and anywhere. Blogging promote reading and writing, it also improves the use of language and vocabulary.

The effective use of blogs can be improved by introducing personal diaries to learners in high school, for the format of a blog is the same to that of a personal diary. In that way learners will be used to writing they will not have to start using blogs in tertiary.  Students can be given chance or tasks to write their own stories and publish them in their blogs. Frequent blogging should be implemented as early as in first year.  We not all into blogging and reading if students could be allowed to choose their own topics that they find interest in , and let them reflect and express their feelings based on those topics that will generate the love of writing and reading and language and writing skills will be developed.
" The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one "~Malcolm Forbes. Let make blogging to be interesting by allowing students to write about what they find interest in.






Sergio Luján-Mora, Susana de Juana-Espinosa. The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and Barriers. Proceedings of the International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED 2007), p. 1-7: IATED, Valencia (Spain), March 7-9 2007. ISBN: 978-84-611-4517-1.