The Issues of Blogging

I have been active in the blogging community for years and even teach classes on blogs. However, I have not been a large contributor to the blogosphere as I have not had much to write about nor did I have the audience to read it. I have created many blogs for teachers to share information, collaborate, and discuss issues, successes, frustrations, only to have nobody use the space. I think you have to have something worthwhile to say and the community or audience to say it in.
So, I created this space for a project and also out of interest in the topic, but have not been successful in getting others to contribute.
Hmmm.....I will keep writing on my personal blog, but will probably call this blog a day...
http://jenithmishne.com

You Know When… at Blog Juice for Educational Technology

You Know When… at Blog Juice for Educational Technology:

"You now when we’re living in an information society, when people come to a Halloween party dressed as a YouTube video."

Yuwie.com

A little off topic, but a social networking site that pays! WHO KNEW? YUWIE KNEW!

Yuwie.com

eSchool News online - Tech keeps parents abreast of wildfires

OK, so I know this is not a new feature of blogging, but how cool is it that I can be on a web site, right click and instantly be able to post about this.

eSchool News online - Tech keeps parents abreast of wildfires

This article is another example of our changing times! A mass-notification system keeping parents informed about fire-related school decisions. Pepperdine Universtity got it's mass-notification set up ONE week before the fires. It couldn't have been timed more perfectly. I bet they didn't expect to test it out so quickly in a real-life situation. How awesome that they were able to use that to keep students informed. I received several voice, SMS and email messages from Pepperdine keeping me alerted to the situation and class scehdules.
After Virginia Tech, many colleges and Universities have put mass-notification systems into place. It sounds like school districts will will be doing so as well.

Weather Today: 80 degrees and Smoky...

NASA's Terra satellite at 5:30 p.m. EDT

Friday...Mostly sunny. Areas of smoke. Highs 84 to 89. Light winds.
Friday Night...Mostly clear. Areas of smoke in the evening. Lows 53 to 61. Light winds.

As the week comes to an end, there is a somber feeling around town. The devastation that has taken place across Southern California is almost unbelievable. Surreal, is the word I hear often right now. Surreal, is what it was, flying over Southern California on Sunday night, October 21st, when there were only 2 fires, Malibu and Irvine.
As I moved through the week, glued to the TV while in the house, listening to talk radio in the car; I also found myself visiting sites like flickr and NASA to see the latest images, following KPBS on Twitter, receiving emergency alerts from Pepperdine University on my cell phone, and reading tons of blog entries documenting every minute of the day. As we know, times have changed and the way we receive information has also changed. It was evident after 911, more evident after Hurricane Katrina, and now this. Even news stations were getting information from blogs and referencing them. Newscasters were asking people to submit their photos online, imagine what that does to photojournalists? Google has even created maps pinpointing all the fire areas.

On these pages, I hope to have conversations about how managing mass media has changed, for better or worse.

The Freedom of Flickr

Kevin Labianco's photos

"The Santiago Fire began shortly before 5:55pm on October 21, 2007 in the foothills north of Irvine and east of the city of Orange in Orange County. Fire officials have attributed the source of the fire to arson; the fire was reportedly started in three separate spots. "

People are posting images and video everywhere on the Internet.

Power of Blogs

To date, I may not have been a major contributor in the blogosphere but I have been a constant reader (or lurker as some may say). I get a lot of my information from reading other people's blogs.
People are blogging about personal issues, work-related issues and political issues. Have you been watching the way blogs are influencing political candidates. Their every action is scrutinized on the Internet through blogs. Before they even finish a speech, debate, press release, people are judging them on their blogs.
If you have been to a conference lately, especially one with bloggers in the audience, they blog about the sessions while they are in the actual session. You can get up to the minute reporting from anywhere.
Then there's the phenomenon of moblogging-mobile blogging-this is where people go about their day, shooting pictures with their cell phone and sending them to their blogs, a sort of photo journal or diary.
You can blog via email, cell phones, SMS, or post from another website. How do you find blogs? You can search using technorati, which used to be referred to as Google for blogs, but now we also have Google Blog Search, it's in beta. Check them out

Information Overload!