Many of my students struggle to find the difference between a traditional web page and a blog. In all reality the lines are starting to get blurred. Before I started writing this piece, I wandered through the World Wide Web looking at what I would consider to be traditional websites (i.e. Historychannel.com) and many of them either had blog sections embedded within their site or offered other means of communication like twitter.
It seems to me that the traditional web site is taking on more and more of the blogging dynamic. What is that dynamic though? To me it is the benefit of quick and dirty information. Information in a blog can be given on any topic in an uncensored format (i.e. no editors telling you what to do). As an educator I am left wondering if this is a good thing or bad thing... When I send my students into the Internet to retrieve facts about a particular topic in history, many times they find someones blog first. Sometimes this information is correct and sometimes it is not, but I suppose the same can be said for a more traditional web site. The bottom line is accuracy is not guaranteed in either case. Often the blogs students find are riddled with opinion and have little supporting facts for said opinions. I always recommend that if they find a blog that they also find a more traditional web site that backs up the information found in the blog for verification. Blogs are not an evil thing. After all, Matt Drudge was the first to report on Bill Clinton's scandal while in office in The Drudge Report.
Joe, This is a great way to start out your blog. The way the web has changed the way we find information requires diligence at every turn to be sure that we have found accurate information. This then requires that we teach our students to always question and investigate the source of the information. Your requirement for them to find corroborating sites for their information is excellent.
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