WHY BLOG?

Technically creating a blog is not a problem - we follow instructions, I would like to learn more things about hyperlinks, for example, within the logs. As we are linguists, and working at Higher Education establishments we are also accustomed to doing basic research on a topic, presenting at conferences, writing articles we have a methodical-scientific norm; so that writing skills are a requisite for our profession. Some may feel more at ease with this, others with less polished dexterity...

I have read with great interest the articles by Andrew Sullivan and Rebecca Blood's one, ”Webblog Ethics” where they tackle the aspect of difference between journalistic blogs and private ones. The journalistic blogs have the function to disseminate information but when webblogs are paid, commercial, they gradually arrive to "promote an agenda". All of them have to observe some ethical standards. The weblogs anyway are forms of participative journalism, Rebecca mentioned that “The webblog's greatest strength — its uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled voice — is also its greatest weakness. ” She calls the weblogs mavericks about whom she claims are notoriously resistant to complying with any ethical rules. She compiles a list of six basic rules for webblogs that she modified from some other authors from which I would like to point out the rule about publicly correct any misinformation and very important rule No 4: “Write each entry as if it could not be changed; added to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry” – any entry is history, even if the circumstances might change, there would be some other entries, it’s not about the ephemeral character of logs, they are instances in history! Also the next rules which require to denounce any conflict of interest and note any questionable or biased source.

Our task is to create reflective blogs, but also to further implement the idea and encourage learners to create their own blogs. If the question was whether those be separate blogs or a common one, I would opt for a blog roll that would include all the students’ ones. Public or private – certainly closed for the public, for internal, class use, for tasks, activities, peer review. Blogs are going to empower students to encourage creativity. I found even some interesting activities to start with, questiones asked, uploading a piece of music, the infinite possibilities for formatting, original templates, video recordings, photographs… Not to mention the programming possibilities, the little details that make the big difference.