Week1: Creating a Blog

I've heard about Blogs before and even created one under the lecturer's guidance but I never thought about them as tools used in language teaching! Now I am proud to say that I learned a lot about Blogging, created this reflective blog myself and I am highly motivated to use blogs in my future teaching!
What is a blog?

A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary.

(Oxford English Dictionary).
The possibilities of blogs are endless.
They can be used as a weekly or daily guide to what is done in the class, give students resources, links to web sites and reminders about any thing. They can be a storage for assignments, interaction with other students,can present, organize, and protect student work as digital portfolios. They are really a platform for communication, a portal to foster a community of learners.
The advantages of using blogs can be as following:
-make learning independent of time and place;
-make education demand oriented participant-centered, unlike 1-way teaching;
-encourage learners to be active throughout the course period;
-help learners to improve writing skills (Blogs allow writing more relevant to the students' 21st century lives, compared tothe traditional writing;
-invite peers to collaborate and involve international audience;
-make education more informal;
-encourage changes in thinking and practicing new things.
Types of blogs:
The Tutor Blog, the class blog, the learner blog - take time to think about the kind of blog you want to create. It's important to plan a blog carefully before you begin the process of creating one.
Creating itself
There are lots of free services out there that will enable you to create a blog: http://www.blogger.com, http://wordpress.com, http://www.livejournal.com, http://edublogs.org/ - are just examples.
Some readings about blogs:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/blogging-elt
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Campbell-Weblogs.html
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/47/
http://www.stageoflife.com/UsingBlogstoTeachWriting.aspx

I've made these tips about Blogging to use in my future work.
So! I've created my own blog and is full of desire to make it attractive and very informative!