Individual blog entries, called posts, are created each time someone sits down to write something new in their blog. When you visit a blog, it’s presented in reverse chronological order, with the newest posts at the top of the page.
Metadata is the information located around each post that provides information about it: what categories it has been placed in for organization, which keyword tags were assigned for facilitating searches, what time the post was published, and how many people have commented on the individual post. The date and time displayed has a name and a timestamp.
A blogroll is a list of other blogs (or websites) that the blog author likes to visit. These could be other educational websites, or the blogs of colleagues here in Jefferson.
A trackback is a way to comment on a blog post through your own blog post. Let’s say I want to respond to something in another person’s blog… I can write my own blog post, include a link to the post I read, and a link back to my own post is listed along with comments. Blogs really are extended conversations.
The special link required to create trackbacks is called a permalink. These point not to a person’s blog, but to a specific post within the blog.
Our blogs also contain pages. These are created and maintained with blogging software, but are more static. Many teachers have an “about” page to tell you more about getting in touch with them, what they teach, and any other details they wish to share.
Last, blogs contain a mechanism called RSSfeeds. These feeds can be plugged into browsers and specialized programs called newsfeed readers to track changes made to blogs you like to read. This way, you save yourself the bother of going back to revisit to check for updates. We like Google Reader! Many of our blogs have feeds for both blog posts and comments.
