August 29, 2006

Random opinions about blogs and bloggers

As part of the symposium on blogs in teaching and learning I sent out one of our assistants, Steve Ranford, with a video camera and the instruction to "compile the opinions of a random selection of people on the subject of blogs and blogging. This video is the result.

We did try to get a mix of bloggers and non–bloggers, however, there seemed to be few bloggers around (perhaps they were all locked away in dark rooms desperately trying to write something worthwhile).

Note that it was compiled from victims found in University House during the summer vacation. The undergraduate population, at whom the blogs publicity campaign had been targeted, was scarce.

My observation is this: all of the people interviewed defined 'blog' on the basis of the content that they have seen (or heard about) in other people's blogs. None of them considered it as a technology with a wide range of possible uses. The range of blog use (the audiences and messages associated with those uses) that they will have seen is quite narrow, and hence less likely to fit into their own lives.

It reminds me of Aardman's Creature Comforts. Perhaps we could substitute animals for some of the familiar faces that appear. Any suggestions?


Robert O'Toole : 29 Aug 2006 09:00 |  Tags:    |  Comments (3) |  Report a problem

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  1. They are very Aardman–like :)

    Interesting that virtually everyone knew what they were, but few wrote one, but a lot read them.

    29 Aug 2006, 09:24

  2. As always am fascinated by ‘how to’.. so how do I embed video in my blog then??? and what is the best format (am currently heavily experimenting with flash – not doing the grunt work but getting otheres to do it)

    05 Sep 2006, 04:34

  3. Robert O'Toole

    Hi Simon

    We’ve added an “insert media” button to the create entry interface of WB. You need to supply this with the url of a video file, and WB does the rest of the work in adding the required player to your blog entry. We recommend using Flash video (FLV). You can make such files using the Flash IDE or with an application like Flixpro.

    The media tag will also work with YouTube video feeds.

    Rob

    05 Sep 2006, 08:46

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