What is a Blog ?

Throughout this course you will be applying your own math journal writing skills in a blog. A weblog or blog is an online journal that can allow others to comment on postings. Blog writing is generally informal and can be conversational in tone. A blog is a place where an individual can explore ideas and content more freely. A student can write out their thinking process in his or her blog, but because he or she also has access to the internet, they can leverage the access via the net to additional knowledge on the topic. For example, a student might be stumped on understanding the Multiplicative Inverse property; they could simply search the net and find examples of definitions or perhaps even other student writing on the topic.

Unfortunately, one of the major drawbacks of using electronic blogs for math journals is that most blog editor tools do not allow students to easily write out mathematical notations or easily produce diagrams and illustrations. Students and teachers who have access to a scanner can scan images of their solutions or images and upload these images to their blogs. Despite this drawback, blogs still have many advantages as math journaling tools.

If you would like to learn more about how to use blogs as a collaborative tool, PLS offers another course called Building Collaborative Online Environments.