Maybe the last time (or first time) you heard about blogs was during the last Presidential election. Bloggers on the east coast allegedly reported information about exit polls publicly on the internet, allowing west coasters to either counter-vote or decide to stay home. This was replayed on The West Wing's most recent election, just in case you didn't hear this accusation.
Blogs are public diaries, semi-editorials, ventings, rants, raves, etc. Anyone
can start or be a blogger. "Blog" comes from the amalgamation of "web
log" as in a web diary. Based on a website, the blog is generally utilitarian
and text-intensive. And who has the time to read them, much less search them
out?
Our students certainly have time to read, write, and comment on blogs - and
blogs are moving very quickly into the mainstream. Ever been to MySpace.com?
Blogs can be (and have been) used in court as public confessions or evidence
of motive. You can't watch a tv show without being told there's an attached
blog by a character or creator.
Professors and teachers already have websites for their courses, as much as I'm sure many of you have websites for your learning centers. They might even have blogs or open forums. Isn't it time the rest of education caught up with the trend?
Some teachers are using blogs as a way to maintain quality and inspire competition
in their students. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this
year, Rate My Students will soon be coming to a computer screen near you. College
presidents are even getting into the act with educational blogs.
An advantage to a blog is its ability to be continuous and fresh. Whereas websites
have an experience of permanence (in that a viewer is mostly unable to see previous
versions of a site and text), blogs can be recorded and archived for future
viewers to explore. Think of it as your own small version of the LCE, with topics
that you can search and easily find and view later, at your leisure. Intrinsically,
adding blogs to your website might impress students with your acceptance and
understanding of their culture and communication, making you, your program,
and your center more approachable.
How do you make your blog one to bookmark? There a few cosmetic things you
can add to a blog that will connect you with your audience in simple ways.
Blogs make the reading experience hyperreal. Have instant "references"
available to your readers by using hypertext (aka: links). You've probably noticed
this in any news articles you've read online recently. Maybe you'll want to
have a link for a larger word to its definition on dictionary.com. Maybe in
describing school resources you'll want to include links to the school's library
website or other services. A "related links" on the bottom of a page
is a thing of the past; instantly linking words to other resources will improve
the experience (albeit superficially), making it all at once colorful, easy,
interactive, and exciting.
Part the allure of the blog to your program should be its inherent fight against
social norms and perceptions. Consider the usual information about alcohol consumption,
almost on any given college campus: students think/perceive that more alcohol
is being drunk than really is, and think/perceive more people are drinking than
actually do. Learning centers in their many forms may also have a misconception
concerning their role in school, and it's often a negative, stigmatized one.
Blogs may be a way to help fight that. Think of the different things you might
be tempted to publicize: how many students you served today; the average student-to-tutor
ratio for the day; countdown to tutoring week. These are not difficult things
to post or automate. And with a blog, you could display pointers about the necessity
of outlining a paper… much like we do here.
Some advice for organizing your blog:
Good luck! Let us know how it turns out for you on the forum!
Have a safe and very sunny summer!
Questions or comments? Contact the author at j.scibet@usip.edu.