Week #1 Reflection On Blogging

http://www.perezhilton.com  

              The objective of Perez Hilton’s perezhilton.com blogs are to inform readers about events such as charities, arrests, sightings, fights, and so on that involve celebrities such as newscasters, musical artists, politicians, television and movie stars, as well as even ordinary people who have five minutes of fame.  Perez Hilton is the epitome of a “blogger” as he utilizes every key characteristic of what a blog should contain.  On any given day, Perez updates his page at least five times, posting not only in the morning, but even late into the night.  In almost every blog, he provides links to videos, photos, personal affiliations, other websites for further investigation about the topic at hand, and even his other weblogs.  Perez allows readers the opportunity to be a part of the writing process by leaving their comments/opinions on each page.  He not only engages readers, but demands interaction with his readers through questions he poses on each blog for readers to answer.  Another good characteristic of blogging that Perez Hilton follows is archiving his posts, which allows readers to navigate and find blogs based on personal interests faster.  Perez further creates a community among bloggers in the sense that every one of his posts is a link in and of itself that people can access and share with others.    

            There are several classroom applications that can be implemented with Perez Hilton’s blogs, as long as teachers preview the articles for approval before each activity.  I believe that Perez Hilton’s blogs could be a huge motivator in getting students to participate not only in class lectures, but reading and writing as well since the use of “the internet is this generations defining technology for literacy” (Zawilinski, 2009, p. 651).  His posts can be used as a topic of the day discussion, especially if its centers around a “news worthy” topic, which on any given day, there are informative articles that can be found on his blog.  Students could further research topics of interests from any one of Perez Hilton’s blogs and present it to the rest of the class.  In order to promote writing, students could also write in journals about their reactions and opinions about blog post that they find interesting.  Students can also create their own blogs where they can write their own comments, opinions, or questions about Perez Hilton’s posts that interest them.

            The literacies that are involved when entering any one of Perez Hilton’s websites include, reading his actual blogs, navigating through the links, searching through relevant topics according to preferences, and responding to blogs.  Literacy is also involved when readers post their opinions about certain topics Perez decides to discuss, which “on the internet, writing is intrinsically integrated with the reading comprehension process” (Zawilinski, 2009, p. 652).  Literacy fits into his blogs because sometimes his posts are helpful in informing readers about news that pertains to them such as political and wellness information. 

            Technology is used to transform teaching and learning through providing students a choice in which blogs and articles they decide to read, respond to, and/or report about.  The fact that Perez Hilton allows for online communication on his website is important because “online communication has become an essential aspect of online reading comprehension” (Zawilinski, 2009, p. 652).  Not only is the use of Perez Hilton’s blog a motivational attempt to engage students in literary practices, but it allows students to “turn to online networks as learning resources” (Johnson, 2010, p.180).      

http://cocoperez.com/
http://teddyhilton.com/
http://fitperez.com/
http://perezhilton.com/radioperez/?autostart=yes