Bloging about bloging

My first post

Welcome to my educational technology blog.  I am writing this for my masters degree in physics education.  I think a valuable part of any education these days is the technology that you can use to further that education in learning and teaching.  I have started a blog before and when I was starting that blog I researched the best place to start a blog there are so many different ways to do it these days.  You can start a blog here at blogger.  You can create a blog on wix, or squarespace or weebly or many others.  You can even make a website in google and post it like a blog.  There are many different advantages and disadvantages to the different sites.  Some of the ones that are dedicated to only blogging (ie. blogger, blog.com, etc.) are more user friendly to the person that just wants to blog and doesn't want to customize the look of their blog or learn any coding.  However sites like that are also limited in how you can change the look of your blog so it has to have a standard look.  If you are in to customization and you want to do a little coding along with it to really get the look that you want going with a custom website like squarespace or wix is probably a better idea for you but if you just want to get you ideas out there on the web a blogging site is quicker but has less customization.  There are also several other options to get your ideas out there like a vlog which is a video blog or a discussion board or really there are so many different options to get your ideas on the web but if you are looking for a place where writing is required and you need to get ideas out there quickly in the written form there is no place better then blogger. 

I think that the affordance of a blog over other types of technology that also allow you to have a voice on the internet is that for one they are really quick.  You don't have to know anything about video editing or any video formatting like you would have to do with a video blog.  If you wanted a quality vlog you really would also need to probably purchase quality video editing software in order to have a quality vlog that people might listen to which also is a big bonus for the affordance of a blog.

I think another affordance of a blog over other technology is that you are the only one that has a voice on you blog and you don't need to be interrupted or not be able to finish your thought.  On a discussion board there are often many voices all at once and they usually limit the character that you have to voice you opinion.  None of that exists in a blog.  You have as many characters to voice you idea as you want and you don't need to answer what other are saying in you blog.  I think these are all bonuses that add to the affordance of a blog over a discussion board. 

I think another affordance of a blog over a standard website is that you don't have to learn any coding or anything.  I know that with website now you can very easily make a website without coding anything in the website yourself but it does take a little bit of time to set it up like a blog and it also if you really want to get it just right it would be good to know the code behind it.  You don't have to do any of that with a blog.  It is already set up for you and from the time of setting it up until the first post is minimal so that I think this could also be considered as an affordance of a blog over a traditional website. 

So now to the part where I would use a blog in my content area.  Now I teach physics.  There is not so much writing in physics as there would be in an English class. So I think that this will be a little harder to use the TPACK model and use blogging in my content area.  One idea that I had would be to take notes on-line using a blog.  I think that if I were to do that then I wouldn't have students losing their notes.  I also think that if you did it that way you could add other things that you wouldn't be able to add into notes normally like for instance you could have your students put a video of your demonstration of the concept right in with the notes that they type for that concept.  I think that this would be a good enough advantage in itself to warrant a change in note taking to this style.  I also think that because when you blog the blog aromatically organizes things in a chronological way it would be easy to organize your notes that way and have the latest notes at the top of the page.  Also because there is not much writing in physics right now but we know that there is a lot of writing in real world science by teaching my students to write in a blog it might just help them in the long run when they get to further their education.   Another idea that I thought of is that my students might need to do lab reports on a blog and then share that blog with someone that is actually in the field of physics and see what kind of reactions we could get from that community.  I think that this would not only help my student with their scientific writing skills but it could also open that doors for a physics career in the future for some of my students.  These are two ideas that I came up with where I could possibly use this type of technology in my physics classroom that would not only further their content knowledge, and their technological knowledge but would also go along well with my pedagogical knowledge in how I teach physic to my students which is what the TPACK model in all about. 

I think that blog are a valuable educational tool that we can use in our classroom that allow students to quickly get ideas on the web without having to code or learn any additional knowledge other than writing.  They could be very useful in a physics class to take notes and to write lab reports that could then be shared with the community at large to further propel my students into possible physics careers.  I think that we could all use this technology in any classroom and it could be a valuable assets if use correctly.  Thanks.