Looking at the inhouse blog we have at work I noticed it has no tagging and in Blog search, you can search for people but not topic (the system search will allow you to look for words in Blogs as well as words in content but it is not easily located in the same area!). It does allow you to see those in your class which may provide an imediate audience - and possibly a compulsory audience of one, does the teacher have a responsability to read their students Blogs?
I was commenting on a post by John Pallister recently on how to generate an audience and I mentioned tags. If our system doesnt do this should we move to one that does?
Alternatively should we encourage our students to move? The in-college blogging system providing a paddling pool to let them get started before swimming off onto the web (obviously leaving a feed in the old blog to the new one in case they had developed a following?).
And what do we tell those who dont get read? Without Tags to show common interests will students probably only search for students they know? How important is it to warn students about the fact that they are unlikely to generate an audience and they may likely be their only visitor. Will some need a shoulder to cry on?
Keywords: blog audience, e-portfolios
