TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Highlands Today

What's A Blog?

ADVERTISEMENT

By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: November 12, 2008

This story is blogging 101. Veteran bloggers will find it elementary.

But for those who have never blogged themselves - never even looked at a blog - read on.
Ian Belanger has signed up to teach Introduction to Blogging at South Florida Community College.

"I'm a digital native," said Belanger. "Other people are digital immigrants."

Translation: he's 29. He grew up using Mom and Dad's green-screened Apple II. But older folks...

"They're willing to learn. They just don't know where to go."

So for $34, they can take Belanger's four-night class in the SFCC computer lab.

First lesson: blog is short for Web log. It's like e-mail, but it's published on, for instance, Google's Blogspot.com.

Here's another difference: e-mail is usually private, from one person to another. Blogs are generally public. The exception, Belanger says, is when the blogger limits the readers to subscribers only, or invites a small group - like family - to read.

Belanger's day job is simplifying economics to fourth-graders at Cracker Trail Elementary.

"So I want people to know, it's definitely not difficult," Belanger said. "If you can use a word processor, you can blog. There's no special coding. That all gets done for you."

It sounds easy, and it is. For those who don't want to take the class, go to Blogspot.com. There's a button, "Create your blog now."

"You don't even have to own a computer," Belanger said. "You can go to a library." Computer use is free at any Highlands County library.

Now, an obvious question: why would anyone want to blog?

Belanger blogs for two reasons, to two groups: to his own family, many of whom are back in the Midwest; and to his students and their parents.

For his family, there's personal news about the growth of children, photos, music, games, whatever families talk about. "It's about what we're doing in our lives," Belanger said.

For his students, there's homework assignments, further explanations of what happened in the classroom that day, rules for the Halloween parade, information about a cool science experiment, school news.

For the parents of those students, Belanger goes way beyond Parent's Night, where they meet the teacher once a year and have a single desultory conversation about the future of little Johnny.

"Parents are constantly e-mailing me, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.," Belanger said. They want help for a student, information about long-term projects, or more on the paper the teacher sent home that day. He thinks as many as 75 percent of parents read the blogs.

And so for his college students, who will be older, perhaps snowbirds, "It's wide open. Whatever they want to blog about. They can share photos, videos, poetry. They can brag. We're down here, wearing shorts and having a margarita. And you're up there shoveling snow."

During those four 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. sessions, which will start on Jan. 5, students will create their own blogs, learn what blogging is, how it relates to them and how to voice their opinions.

What'll they think of next?

Well, since you asked: Podcasting. They're broadcasts for iPods (but they can also be heard on any computer). Belanger is teaching podcasting to teachers, who are podcasting to their own students and parents.

"Think of it as an audio version of blogging," Belanger says.

Gary Pinnell can be reached at gpinnell@highlandstoday.com or 863 386-5828

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT