What is a Blog?

Wikipedia defines blog as: a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. A blog can also be a shared online journal where people can post daily entries about their personal experiences and hobbies.

Blogging is a technological possibility. A facility offered for sharing of information and comments over the net. There are many types of blogs like; personal, genre, corporate and media. A detailed analysis into the benefits and drawbacks of a blog site will not only help you understand it much better but also use it more effectively and efficiently.

Advantages of Blogs

1. Blog sites can be developed with the help of simple procedures.
2. A blog post goes public, in other words, it can be accessed and read by almost everyone who have an access to internet.
3. The usage of blogs are very convenient, hence people tend to use them more frequently.
4. Students tend to improve their writing skills as blog articles should be reasonably good enough and free grammatical mistakes.
5. Students get into the habit of writing, which helps them in all their future endeavors.
6. Blog sites used as online class forums enables students with various personalities to participate in a discussion far more effectively than they can otherwise.
7. Individuals learn to express their opinions and exchange their views on topics of common interest, which not only keeps them updated but also effective contributor’s of new ideas.
8. Individuals get a chance to read other blogs, which indirectly helps them to improve upon their skill of writing.
9. Instructors of online classes get an opportunity to know what students feel about the class and its presentation quality and help to find ways to improve upon drawbacks if any.
10. It is place for students and individuals to share their articles and opinions with people outside their community.

Disadvantages of Blogs

1. It involves a lot of time to update and post an entry on the blog site
2. Regular writing may give rise to slangs and sloppy way of writing spoiling the quality of proper usage of language.
3. One major drawback is that not all information can be shared on blog sites. Hence may not be useful for everyone.
4. The need to have a computer may not be feasible for everyone.
5. Individuals and students may have reluctance is getting used to the technological advancements.
6. Blogging cannot be thrusted upon students who are hardly interested in reading and replying to the post.
7. Blogging on day to day issues is different from writing on the subject. Hence it may not be a practical idea to force them to do it.
8. We were talking individual blogs linked to the groups website, while it is good for students to have their own blog sites, remember not all may be able to participate, unless, all the comments are seen in one common blogging site.
9. There is no confidentiality as it is a public forum.
10. It can no way be related to conversation, as there is always a time gap in the replies received.
11. It is not suited for issues requiring immediate solution.
12. Blogs create a sense of students competing with each just for posting entries. The fear of students getting diverted away from the subject is an issue of concern.
13. The moment students open to the web; it is not just the blogging site that they can have access to. The whole world of information is before them, hence there is every chance that they may get diverted away from the discussion.

The entire discussion about the uses of blogs is about its usage and benefits relating educational programs and online course of study. We mainly aimed at how blogs are used in today’s web based learning; we hope it served the purpose. Friends don’t forget to share your thoughts and views on blogs and it’s usage with us.

- Happy Learning !!