Once reserved for the tech elite, blogs are now triggering the shift towards user-generated content on the Internet, otherwise known as the “Web 2.0” movement. The emergence of the blogosphere has even become prevalent in the Wesleyan classroom.
Ideal for an academic setting, some professors are making blogs a mandatory part of class—posting articles, detailing assignments and creating a forum for class discussion.
Blogs have evolved from merely distributing information to allowing its users free exchange of opinions and ideas.
“I decided to blog so that students would have an opportunity to write in any voice they choose about the work of the course, be heard but not be graded or judged, and maybe they would like their writing better and be bolder in their class work,” said Claire Potter, associate professor of History and American Studies. “I also wanted to give people who don’t like to talk in class a forum where they could share their thoughts with others without suffering the social anxiety that is often associated with talking in front of 80 people.”
Last semester, Information Technology Services (ITS) hosted a series of conversations about new technologies, including blogs, wikis and podcasts, to explore which technologies and providers best suited the needs of the Wesleyan community. These conversations culminated in the “Web 2.0 Expo” last May, which acquainted members of the community with the technologies and stimulated conversation about how they might be used.
“ITS now provides blogging software and instructional support to faculty who wish to use blogs in their work,” said Director of University Communications Justin Harmon. “[ITS] works directly with faculty on ways they can use new technologies in support of their teaching and scholarship.”
Faculty and staff members can request to create an ITS-sponsored blog in conjunction with work for their class, to highlight research, to collaborate with other schools or for other academic applications.
Professors have found that Blackboard, a Wesleyan-sponsored service that allows instructors to add an online component to their classes, does not meet all of the demands of a college course.
“ITS provides faculty members with the capabilities of creating a blog through Blackboard to secure a more private exchange of ideas,” said Associate Vice President for Information Technology Services Ganesan Ravishanker, “Some professors choose to make blogs without ITS’ help. However, we can also help set up blogs through WordPress if professors would prefer their blog to be more widely accessible.”
“I use a blog because you can’t upload from YouTube to Blackboard, and there are a ton of great things on YouTube – old political commercials, for example,” Potter said. “Second, I have had very little success getting students to use the Blackboard chat rooms and such, maybe because it’s so formal, there are rules. ”People would just be looser in a forum not marked as academic. Maybe they would even think history is fun, or funny.“
Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject such as politics or local news. Additionally, blogs can function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.
”I have two reasons for my blog,“ said Associate Professor of Sociology and American Studies Jonathan Cutler, whose blog was not created in conjunction with his courses. ”The first is to provide a way for former students of mine to stay connected to things that we would talk about in class, to remain engaged in an academic analysis of news. Of course, I encourage current students to read the blog, as well.
“Second, the academic publishing world runs slowly and although this allows for more thoughtful academic studies, it also does not allow for timely information to be analyzed in a timely manner. Self-publishing online allows for academic conversation to take place in real time.”
The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of the blogging phenomenon. Bloggers and other contributors to user-generated content are behind Time naming their 2006 person of the year as “you.”
“I have my own blog, ‘Tenured Radical,’ that I have been doing for almost a year, on blogspot,” Potter said. “I started doing that because I wanted a more informal way to write about the things that were important to me as an intellectual, a teacher and a writer.”
According to Potter, a blog is a great way to write short pieces for people to respond to, because academic publishing is slow and laborious.
“The class blog was kind of an offshoot of that, and was also a consequence of discovering the Wesleying blog, which is some of the best, sharpest student writing I have see—ar better than most of the papers I get,” Potter said. “And I wondered whether I didn’t like the papers because the students hated writing papers, too, and if they would like writing better if they blogged as part of the class.”