(ICT) Contraction of the term Weblog. A blog is essentially a website that contains discrete pieces of information posted by different users. New items of information are usually entered by contributors via a simple form, following the introduction of each new theme by a person who initiates the blog, and then submitted to the site, where they may be filtered by an administrator before being posted. A blog can contain news items, short essays, annotated links, documents, graphics, and multimedia. These posts are usually in reverse chronological order and often take the form of a journal or diary. A blog is normally accessible to any Internet user, but closed blogs may also be created, e.g. to document the thoughts and experiences of a group of students or to provide a means of communication between teachers and students following a particular course. The wordblog is also used as a verb, and Blogger is used as a noun to describe someone who blogs (See:next entry). A blog is usually distinguished from an Internet Discussion List (also known as a Forum), but the latter can function in a similar way insofar as it typically allows any user to post messages to it that can be viewed via the Web. See: Moblog, RSS, Splog, Wiki. See Section 12, Module 1.5, headed Discussion lists, blogs, wikis, social networking. The ICT4LT website blog is at: http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com