Blogging - Motime

No downloading – fairly easy to set up, has a password and login set up.

Features

Has date based text records and can categorise entries. Can add photos etc with a bit of fiddling.

Cost

Free. Only cost is for your time online to post entries.

What it's used for

Knowledge and information sharing. If you're more of a talker than a writer then audio blogging may suit you better than text reflection. If you're more visual then photo blogging may be more your style.

Why it's good

It’s pretty straightforward to set up and get started. Also has a Categories feature, so you can organise your postings around topics.

Problems/downside

Can take time to get used to text blogging as a tool, especially if you're more of a talker than a writer.

Examples to check out (places to play are marked with an *)

• Jo Murray’s blogs - http://wedgetailedeaglebreamcre.motime.com and http://jomurray.blogspot.com
• Dorothy Waterhouse’s blog - http://dots_cops.blogspot.com/2004/10/main-page-freemind-free-mind-mapping.html
• Peter LeCornu’s blog - http://lecornu.blogspot.com/ 
• Stephen Downes’ blog - http://www.downes.ca/

Alternatives

Blogger is the simplest alternative and is really easy to set up and use, but doesn’t have the categorizing feature.

Audioblogger is a very simple way to blog from a mobile phone.

Picasa2 is really good for sharing photos and Flickr is very popular too.

Criteria/factors - Motime

Criteria		Comment
User friendly	Yes	Easy to set up with lots of templates to choose from and ok to use.
Push or pull in kind	Pull – can become Push if use RSS	Add RSS feeds from others' blogs is quiet easy.
Low or high interaction with participants/facilitators	Lowish	Readers can post comments so there is potential for interaction.
Synchronous or asynchronous activity,	Asynchronous
Facilitator skills of a low or high level	Low	Just need to be able to add in text.
Participant skills of a low or high level	Low	Just need to be able to access a website.