New students starting the Learning, Technology and Research degree have been trying out blogs - at least 16 so far, and I expect more to try blogging as a learning journal tool.

Already there are some gems. Today I've discovered the OSALT site - open source as alternative - reported in Toby's blog.. The advice on alternatives to Photoshop shows how the site works - I'll be revisiting whenever I think about buying software.

I was invited to an an early meeting about a university project on blogging. Perhaps the university was put off by my view that students should not be restricted to using university software (restrictions wouldn't work anyway) but should be encouraged to try the many (often free) tools available. All I do, on behalf of the course team, is collect the feeds and put them in an aggregator.

The students have also engaged in a critical discussion about social software, starting with a student who is uneasy with social technologies, using Facebook as an example. Opinions were invited, and facilitators stepped in to offer a range of reading about the subject. The facilitation team have different opinions about their individual use of social sites, although the general view is that students should be encouraged to try for themselves and compare their opinions to literature.

Blogspot is the most popular choice among the students, followed by wordpress. The first assignments by new students have been created using Open Office, FreeMind, Google Docs and Shrink Pictures, as well as an assortment of other software.