Blogs

• Blogs have many characteristics, as outlined in "Blogs and Blogging: Text and Practice" by Aimeee Morrison. These include: a post that helpss structure the blog, Date and time listing, the posts in reverse chonological order, hypertext with links to other sites, archiving of posts and reference to previous posts, reference to likeminded blogs and sources, allowance of reader comments to posts, and keywords to help make the blog more searchable.
  
• Blogs are useful for many things, most importantly it helps create communication between people. Examples of this are that it keeps people in touch, it connects people with like thoughts/ideas and it can aid in people’s understanding of different things (used as information transfer).
  
• Blogs are a distinct type of writing because it is a person’s thoughts broadcast to many people for free. It can also use pictures, videos, and mp3 to help get the author’s idea across unlike a book or poem.
  
• Blogging can be an effective way of learning because learning is taking in information to then be used later. People can place their opinions on blogs and that allows people to see all the various opinions that people have about a certain topic. Even though some people may not have the credentials, their opinion is still valid and allows others to interpret. Also, people can meet people they might not otherwise meet. For example, if a person is trying to understand a theory and they do not have many resources around them besides the internet, they could look to a blog of a person specialized in that field, therefore giving them a better understanding.
  
• Blogging is a form of writing and creativity and has aspects that would be beneficial to learning. It combines multiple media in order to express an opinion or thought. Since blogs are unique, I think they could and should be incorporated into “regular learning”