What Blogs Are

I originally thought that Blogs were electronic logs, meaning personal journals. I asked several colleagues and students, "What is a Blog?" The majority responded to the effect that, "A Blog is writing a journal on-line." One student replied, "A Blog is a person's on-line journal stating their opinions of things." This idea is closer to the one presented by the author of our course's text. After reading Will Richardson (Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools...2006), I realize that the inception of Blogs was to allow responses to specific material encountered on the 'Read/Write' Web. Going beyond the 'bookmark,' they make it possible for one to write and read reviews on the products of others. Yet the concept of Blog is not this simple. Blog uses go beyond reviews to recording histories, conversing in the present and describing plans and visions for the future. I personally hope to use them as a tool to encourage reluctant readers and writers to grow their language skills.

If the majority of the population believes that blogs are on-line journals, is that not what they will become? I'll answer my own question - no. Because the myriad uses will be discovered and will spread and this tool will evolve. One more complication, Richardson characterizes Wikis as an entirely different tool from the Blog. It seems that a wiki is meant to be a collaborative effort, a group product. As I presently see them being used, I am struggling with the difference between wiki and blog. Why did Jutrecht choose a wiki over a blog as the home page for his on-line course?

BTW blogger.com, I miss my spell check, thesarus, and font formatting.