Global Horizons

According to Wikipedia a blog is:
A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although many focus on photograph (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting).

Reading a blog is really easy. Typically on the blog home page you will find posts (articles) listed in reverse chronological order (newest at the top) down the body of the page. Each post may or may not have a link at the bottom for readers to add comments. In the side bar you will find a variety of headings including the following:

• Pages – you will find links to other pages that are part of blog you are reading
• Categories – These are really cool. As an author makes a post they can assign keyword, or Categories, to that post. This allows the reader to easily find all the posts about a particular category by simply clicking on the category. This applies a filter to the blog that will show only those posts in which the choosen categories is applied. For example…if you want see all the posts related to “one computer classrooms” you just click “one computer classrooms” under the categories heading and just those posts will be displayed in the main body of the page.
• Archives – Previous posts sorted by month
• Blogroll – These are links to other blogs…typically the authors favorites.
• Meta – This is where the author can go to manage the blog and users can go to find the information to subscribe to the blog.
• Wiki – This is a direct link to a wiki page that is directly associated with the blog
• Calendar – This allows the user to easily look for posts on particular days

Another really cool feature of blogs is the subscription aspect. Using a Web 2.0 technology called RSS feeds, readers of a blog can use a single application to manage and read multiple blogs. These apps are often called “feed readers” and are usually free software that can be downloaded or web-based. I will be providing more information about subsribing at a later date.

That is really it…now it is time to read, interact, and explore!